


The Thirteenth Step

by thedreadqueen



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: 93 93/93, Addiction, Alchemy, Alternate Universe, Angst, Buy the Ticket, Detox, Drug Use, Edgelord Erik, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Modern Era, Music, Mysticism, No Tree Can Grow to Heaven, Playlist, Psych Ward, Real Magick, Recovery, Rehabilitation, Self-Discovery, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Take the Ride, The OG Modern Recovery AU, Unless Its Roots Reach Down to Hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:54:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 72,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24426106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedreadqueen/pseuds/thedreadqueen
Summary: Two lost, broken people hit rock bottom... and find gold. Modern, dark, gritty AU, set after the events of PotO. An alchemical love letter set to a post-punk, new wave, goth, alt-rock & electronic soundtrack. Trigger warning: explicit language, drug use & sex. Check out The Thirteenth Step collages athttps://imgur.com/a/wT1f7Fy.
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 96
Kudos: 45





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”  
> \- William Blake
> 
> “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell”  
> \- Carl Jung
> 
> “What am I to do with all this silence?”  
> \- A Perfect Circle
> 
> ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
>  _This story is dedicated to all the people who didn’t make it._  
>  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Prologue**

“Best to keep things in the shallow end, ’cause I never quite learned how to swim”  
\- A Perfect Circle

Opening tracks:  
A Perfect Circle, “Blue”, The Velvet Underground, “Heroin”, The Mountain Goats, “Damn These Vampires”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If there was one thing David Carmichael could appreciate about his neighbor, it was his consistency. 

Every morning at 8am the man emerged from his forest green front door, wrapped in a thick brown terrycloth robe, to retrieve the _Star Ledger_ from the end of the driveway. Nadir Khan was old school much in the same way David Carmichael was old school—he read the paper daily, mowed his lawn to precision standards every Saturday afternoon, and favored leisurely walks around the neighborhood at 5pm, rain or shine. He was ex-law enforcement too, or so David gathered. There were a handful of ex-cops living in the area, much to the dismay of local teenagers who sped through the side streets. The other retirees had no problem chewing David’s ear off, waxing nostalgic about their years on the force, but Nadir Khan was different. He never said anything about his former occupation, just tilted his head in benign deferral and volleyed the conversation back in David’s direction. For a while David asked leading questions, peppering their chats with anecdotes from his own career, but no details emerged from Nadir Khan’s delphic visage. Gradually, David came to suspect he was haunted by something, or someone. 

Then came the visits with a strange man David Carmichael could only surmise to be a former criminal. David never managed to get a good glimpse of his face, though he once swore he caught the flash of a bone-white mask. The man was swathed head to toe in black. He appeared almost every Sunday without fail, often staying late into the night. In the summertime the two ate dinner on Khan’s elevated backyard porch. David failed to garner any other details besides the man’s ostentatious car, a matte black Porsche 911 Turbo S with New York plates. It was without question the most conspicuous thing about him, a luxury performance vehicle with a value roughly equivalent to David’s mortgage. 

The mystery began to unravel the day Nadir Khan mentioned he was going away for Labor Day weekend. “Just a couple days down the shore,” he said with a sunny smile. He had been outside for a while that afternoon, watering the plants and hosing down the driveway, and his tan forehead was beaded with perspiration. “Finally got around to booking a cottage on Long Beach Island. A friend of mine will be house-sitting while I’m away.” He paused for a moment. “His name is Erik.” 

“Erik,” David echoed, his mind percolating with questions. He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and waited for more information. 

“We are old colleagues,” Khan continued good-naturedly. “He comes over for dinner every Sunday. You’ve seen him.” 

“The guy with the Porsche,” David remarked, half to himself. 

“Yes, that monstrosity is his,” Khan said with a mild smirk. “I’m leaving Friday morning and I should be back in town Tuesday afternoon at the latest. I instructed Erik to grab the mail while I’m away, so don’t worry about doing it.” Vacation mail duty was a task David and Nadir had grown to reciprocate between them over the years. 

Nothing further was spoken on the matter, and David had nearly forgotten about it until Friday night, when the black Porsche pulled into the driveway. The sun was just beginning to set, and the horizon was rippled with layers of pink and orange clouds. David took it all in from the wicker rocking chair on his small front porch, ice-cold beer in hand. He loved the Indian summer nights, they were wild and burgeoning with possibility, and this curious sentiment made him feel momentarily young again. 

When the car door opened it was as though a black energetic vacuum formed out of nowhere. The thin man in black—Erik—sauntered from the vehicle with an air of feline grace and extreme tension, his long black trench coat billowing in the breeze. A large flat-brimmed fedora shielded the entirety of his countenance. He glided smoothly up the brick and concrete steps to the front door and vanished as quickly as he appeared. David shivered hard, as though someone had walked over his grave. What a foolish thought, he scolded himself. It was no business of his who Nadir Khan invited into his home. Regardless, David had learned to trust his gut instincts over the years; he knew a shady individual when he saw one. 

The sun finished its descent into the cobalt sky, and David retreated to the sanctity of his living room armchair. He was dozing off to the evening news, bathed in the blue light of the TV, when the phone rang. He was still disoriented from sleep when he spoke, and his voice caught midway in his scratchy throat. “Hello?” 

“David,” spoke the voice at the other end of the line. It took David a moment to realize it was his neighbor. He did not sound nearly as calm or as pleasant as usual. There was a distinctive note in his voice that David could only identify as fear. “It’s Nadir Khan." 

“Yes, Nadir,” David replied automatically, trying to get his bearings. He was not used to being disturbed this late. 

“David, I hate to ask you this,” Nadir Khan said, sounding far away and wearier than his years, “but I need a favor. A very big favor.” 

Famous last words, David thought. But what he said was, “Of course.” 

“My former colleague, the one who’s house-sitting for me, Erik?” The call was punctuated by a very long, drawn out sigh. “He’s... not well. He’s been going through some things in his personal life; it’s part of the reason I asked him to house-sit. Get him out of the city, you know how it is. Anyway, I just received a disturbing text message from him, and frankly, I’m worried. I hope it’s not asking too much to have you run next door and check on him. You have my key.” 

“You want me to knock on the door?” 

“Yes,” Nadir responded after a moment. “And if he doesn’t answer, you have my permission to go inside.” 

David froze. The decision to agree felt heavy: a moment of special significance, his gut proclaimed. For his whole life, whenever he got these feelings David felt it was his duty to follow them to their natural conclusion. It was a skill that served him greatly during his time on the force, and sometimes it didn’t amount to anything. Other times... 

“Okay, I’ll do it.” The words erupted from his mouth. 

“Thank you so much,” Nadir murmured with palpable relief. “If everything’s okay you don’t have to call me back.” 

“Sure thing buddy.” David flooded with resignation; best to get this over. He struggled to prop himself up in his chair. “I’ll go over there right now. You have a good vacation, Nadir.” 

The night was still fragrant with flowers and alive with the songs of grasshoppers and other insects. Slippers on, spare key and flashlight in fist, David ventured quietly past the magnolia tree to the other man’s property. The motion detector on the garage light went off, casting David’s long silhouette into the street. He tip-toed up the front steps and tried the front door. It was locked. David knocked, lightly but firmly at first and then more persistently. Then he waited. There was nothing but silence, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he unlocked the door and went in. 

The house was dark except for the kitchen, which glimmered with gentle light. The first thing David saw was a black shape lying crumpled on the white tile floor. On the granite countertop sat several items at which David stared dumbly, delayed with shock, his brain frantically processing the scene and putting the components together: a white mask, a scented candle, still lit, a Bic lighter with a Scorpio symbol on it and a warped empty spoon with a blackened underside, casting strange shadows in the flickering candlelight. The shape of the abnormally bent handle made David imagine a snake in the grass. Beside the spoon were a dozen torn glassine wax baggies, pink in color and stamped with an indecipherable logo, and in the midst of it all lay the pièce de résistance: a plastic 1cc syringe next to its orange cap. 

Overdose, this man was overdosing! David quickly moved to turn him over and check his breathing, but then he saw the face and screamed—screamed louder than he ever cared to admit, for it was a face he could have only envisioned on a corpse, and a long dead corpse at that: shriveled papery grayish skin, thin puckered lips, cavernous eye sockets, and absolutely no nose to speak of, just the barest hint of a septum. David grew light-headed with adrenaline and veered uneasily on his feet. He had to focus. 

“Hey buddy? Buddy?” David shook the skeleton man’s thin shoulders, his voice cracking. “You alright? Hey buddy! Wake up, man!” The man was completely unresponsive. David rolled him on his side and felt his slender wrist. Although he registered a weak pulse, the tone of the man’s unnatural skin was turning blue and David knew he was being slowly deprived of oxygen. He groped blindly for the cell phone in his pocket and dialed 911. 

“This is David Carmichael. There’s a guy overdosing here at my neighbor’s, he’s still got a pulse but he’s barely breathing. 12 Mazenderan Way,” David hollered. 

“We’re sending a unit right now,” said the operator. “Have you performed rescue breathing?” 

All the blood rapidly drained from David’s face. “I’m... not sure I can do that,” he stammered. “He’s got some kind of facial deformity, I’m not sure I should...” 

“This is a matter of life and death, sir,” the operator replied gingerly. “You need to try until EMS arrives. I’ll stay on the line.” 

“I will,” bleated David. He took a deep breath and looked down at the tortured soul before him. 

"Tilt the head, lift the chin, and pinch the nose,” came the operator’s voice. “Seal their lips and give two quick breaths into their mouth, then one long breath every five seconds.” 

“He doesn’t have a nose,” David muttered, “but I’ll try.” And he bent his head and did it. 

The ambulance showed up in minutes, sirens blaring, followed by five cop cars. Overdoses weren’t common in this part of town and there were no out-of-control Labor Day parties to bust yet. David stepped back as the paramedics entered the room, almost beatific in appearance. He felt completely detached, like he had stepped outside of his body and was watching the scene from a distance. An old memory came back to him, one that brought tears that stung to his eyes, of a summer day not unlike this one, a day he had failed to heed his instincts: the day his kid brother Joey died of an overdose in his quivering young arms. 

It was the incident that changed everything for David, the single event that effectively ended his childhood and initiated him into adult life, ushering in over three decades spent protecting and serving the public, and society’s vulnerable in particular. Joey always had a real penchant for broken things, injured creatures, lost causes, the kind of people who slipped through the cracks, so David honored his memory by walking the straight and narrow path. He joined the force, volunteered at shelters and soup kitchens, and talked straight to his kids about drugs when they were growing up, but nothing made up for the fact that Joey’s young life was cut short and David would never get him back. 

“Jesus, get a look at his face,” swore a somber-looking gray-eyed paramedic after checking the man’s pupils. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

“I need 2mg Narcan,” hissed the lead paramedic who secured an oxygen mask over the man’s head. A third paramedic, a young woman with a thick blonde bun and a baseball cap, was hard at work getting an IV in the man’s arm. 

“His veins are trash,” she bemoaned. 

“Get a hit on him, Emma,” said the lead. 

The young woman took a deep breath, carefully maneuvering the needle beneath the man’s pale skin. His forearm was riddled with track marks and scar tissue. “Got it!” 

The downed man’s body violently twitched as he gasped and lurched forward. David thought he jumped at least a foot off the ground but the paramedics held him steady. The next thing he knew, the man’s deep-set dead eyes were open, and they were somehow the strangest and most unsettling thing about him yet, for they were brilliant like a cat’s and yellow-green in color. 

“Sorry we killed your high,” cracked a policeman from the doorway. 

As more emergency workers crowded in the kitchen, David found himself slowly backing up until he was flush against the wall. A second police officer gestured for him to sit on the living room couch. David stepped forward but continued to stand. 

“Are you the neighbor who called?” the officer asked. 

David nodded, but he was lost in thought remembering the way the sunlight had streamed in through the window at the bottom of the stairs that cursed summer afternoon, the way it hit the soft highlights in Joey’s blonde hair like a halo. He had looked so peaceful. 

“Do you know where we can reach the owner of this home?” 

David nodded again slowly. “He’s away for the weekend, I have his cell. I’ll call him. Let me step outside for a moment.” 

The night air was much cooler than David remembered it, and he gulped it down greedily as the breeze nipped gently at his feet. He stood in the light spilling out of the open front door and looked down at his phone in his hand. His hand was trembling, and he grabbed it with his other hand to stop the shaking. For the first time in decades, he wished he had a cigarette. He cleared the way as two additional paramedics ran in with a stretcher; they emerged a few minutes later, occupant in tow. The man in black was strapped down and handcuffed to the gurney. As he was lifted down the front steps, his green eyes met David’s, and something unquantifiable passed between them like a ghost. Then David blinked and the moment was over, and the man disappeared into the back of the ambulance. 

“Did you call the owner?” asked the officer in the doorway. 

David looked down at his phone and sighed, his finger hovering over the call button. There was no delaying the unpleasant news any longer. “I’m sorry Nadir,” he whispered before pressing SEND.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Opening tracks:  
The Velvet Underground, “Sunday Morning”, “Venus in Furs” & “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It seemed like all the worst events of her life happened in September. 

There was the death of her uncle and the divorce of her parents, both of which happened when Laila was a teenager, and there was junior year of college, when she took an unexpected leave-of-absence from Berklee to chase the ever-elusive dream gig playing bass on tour for an up-and-coming hippie jam band. Laila was never a huge fan of the music—too much digression, how much ego-driven guitar noodling could one person possibly stand before going insane?—but the job paid well with exposure and she felt lucky to snag the spot from more seasoned musicians. She was the token woman in the band, but Laila was used to that; there weren’t a lot of women at Berklee either. She wore her ’80s leather biker jacket with disdain and sneered down at the pastiche of colors on the dance floor, the drunken wild crowds in tiny packed clubs, pulsing with light and energy and heat. 

All of that was over now. Six years into her leave from school, knee-deep in $80K of student loans, no degree and no solid career progression to speak of, she felt as lost and untethered as the proverbial sailor stranded at sea. Then there was the true proverbial wrench in the works, the fact upon which all reality seemed to hinge: she was an addict, crushing up blue 30mg oxycodone pills on the linoleum counter, shivering and sweating through band practice in her oversized threadbare hoodies. She could partially thank her ex, Raphael, for that. Money, which was never plentiful, quickly became an issue. Her well-meaning but clueless parents offered to help with rent and student loan payments, and soon Laila moved on to the next phase of her doomed experiment with needles. Everything promptly turned to shit. She broke it off with Raphael, who was also a junkie by that point, and sequestered herself away in her crummy Allston apartment. Darkness, too much darkness, followed. 

Laila knew she had to leave Boston, leave behind the liquor store beneath her bedroom window with its 24-hour buzzing florescent sign, but it took her six excruciating months to do it. She bid a lukewarm farewell to her apathetic roommate and took the Chinatown bus down to New York City, where she jumped on the commuter train and crossed the Hudson River to New Jersey, dragging her battered suitcase behind her. Almost everything she owned was relegated to boxes in a padlocked storage closet in the Allston basement, not that there was anything of particular value. Her bass, a black 1979 Music Man Stingray, made the trip down to Jersey with her. It had been passed down to her by her uncle Al, and she would kill herself before she sold it. 

Laila disliked New Jersey, and she wasn’t particularly fond of her step-mom either. Her father Sean still lived in Laila’s childhood home, running a busy psychology practice from his home office with the big picture window overlooking the woods behind the property. He had remarried rather quickly while she was away in school, a woman Laila secretly detested above all else. Roxanne, “Roxy” to her friends, was by far the most vulgar and unnaturally tan white woman Laila had ever seen. Her hair had never left the ’80s: giant, teased pouffy waves with frosted tips, reeking of product and hairspray; her nails were long, square, and fuchsia. Laila had yet to see her wear anything other than acid-washed denim and Spandex. As an added offense, Roxy drove a white convertible Mustang with chain-linked vanity plates. Her musical tastes ranged from Bruce Springsteen to Jon Bon Jovi, and no force in heaven or hell could compel Laila to call her “step-mom” out loud. 

Laila’s mom was living twenty-five minutes away, in a pricey little condo in neighboring Cranford. She was a workaholic, much like Laila’s father, selling real estate and plastering pictures of her airbrushed smile on park benches and signs around town. To her credit, Adrienne Falack was a former model, and her face made for great print. Laila’s younger brother Ari was in his sophomore year of college studying biochemistry at Rutgers in New Brunswick. He made the Dean’s List every semester, and everyone in the family expected great things of him. 

The only person who ever made Laila feel she was capable of greatness was her dear Uncle Al, may he rest in peace. He turned her mind on to music when she was young, playing Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath on vinyl, filling her world with a kaleidoscope of evolving musical textures, and it was he who first placed her clumsy uncalloused kid hands over the fretboard of his acoustic guitar and showed her how to play. Music was the purest and most divine of all the creative arts, said Uncle Al, a language of light unto itself, but the ultimate goal as a creator was the Great Work. “Is that your next cover band?” nine-year-old Laila had asked. Her uncle had gotten a real good kick out of that one. 

“Oh, it’s way bigger me than me, kiddo,” he said with a wink. “One day it’ll be your task too.” But Laila never found out what he meant by that. Not half a decade later, he was on a respirator in a medically-induced coma, and Laila’s fragile heart was pierced with swords and shattered into a thousand pieces. She began cutting her arms with razor blades in secret, just to feel the pain and let it out, and was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anxiety six months later. Now, twenty-six years old and rapidly burning the candle at both ends, she realized she was going to have to deal with it—all this old pain lodged inside her like a bullet, black like tar in her veins, laced with bitterness and expectation and regret. She was going to have to tell her dad. 

She re-assessed the stash in her cigar box once she arrived at her father’s house and determined she had approximately three days’ worth of dope left, if she kept her use to a minimum. It hadn’t been easy procuring such a costly amount of heroin at the last minute, and Laila didn’t want to think about what she had done to get it. Maybe she would talk about it in therapy. That afternoon, after shooting up in the bathroom, she sat at the kitchen table with a mug of Earl Grey tea and showed her father her arms. 

Sean Michael Ward was a man of few words, a great listener according to his lifelong therapy patients, and he sat quietly with his hands folded in front of him for about two minutes before he finally spoke. “How long has this been going on?” he asked. 

Laila swallowed. “Long enough.” 

He looked at her arms again, reached out and gently traced the red roadmap of scabs and scarring along the basilic vein and all its tributaries with his fingers. Laila had never seen him so shocked. “I’m so sorry, Laila,” he said. His voice was shaky. 

“It’s okay, Dad,” she replied. 

“Do you want to go to treatment?” he asked. 

Laila bit her bottom lip and let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “Yes.” 

He looked relieved. “We better call your mom.” 

And that was how, three days later, Laila found herself packing her suitcase once more and heading to rehab. 

She did the last of the heroin the night before, a nice fat dose as a final send-off to those fickle and fair-weather junkie gods, standing in her bare feet before the bathroom sink. She’d been having trouble with her arms for a while and was prepared to try the vein on her foot, but fate had smiled down upon her and registered a beautifully swirling scarlet plume on the first try. Transfixed, she bore down on the plunger; it took about five seconds for the rush to hit, a wall of slack-jawed euphoria and warm tranquility coming in languid waves, coursing up her spine and filling her weary limbs, blanketing the world in a lazy and wondrous glow. Everything was going to be okay in the end. _If it’s not okay, it’s not the end_ , whispered a voice in the back of her head. 

She was so high that night she wasn’t sure she actually slept. But morning came, and Laila showered and used her dad’s electric clippers with the #1 guard to re-shave the overgrown sides of her head. She felt renewed with spiritual purpose. She was a bad-ass. It was the last time this would happen to her. She was going to war. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

By the time her father’s SUV pulled up in front of the Victorian facade of Oak Haven, she was having second thoughts. 

Oak Haven Hospital was a 122-bed psychiatric facility, founded sometime around the turn of the last century and tucked away in the hills of Watchung Mountain. The main building was beautifully restored, painted yellow with white trim and a wide veranda wrapping around the front and a spacious corner gazebo, but it was used almost exclusively by administrative staff. Behind this building lay several others that were interconnected and tucked away from the street, the meat and bones of the hospital: patient wards, cafeteria, laundry, and courtyard, all of which were boxy and gray, built with cinderblock and utterly devoid of charm or character. Aesthetic shortfalls aside, Laila’s dad had to pull several strings to get her an appointment that morning. Spaces in detox and rehab were always at a premium, and prospective patients often had to wait weeks for a spot. In that respect, Laila supposed she was lucky. 

“Do you want me to go in with you?” her father asked. 

Laila thought about it. “Maybe just up to the front desk,” she said after a moment. 

The waiting game began. First she waited in the lobby. Then the intake counselor who emerged to orchestrate the admission process made her wait several minutes in an empty office while she spoke to the insurance company. She came back with an armful of folders, which hit the desk with a resounding slap. “We’re not on electronic medical charts yet,” she said when she saw Laila eyeing the stack, “so I need you to fill out these forms.” At some point during the tedious regurgitating of personal information, Laila began to come down. She had coasted through the morning on yesterday’s high, blasting the Velvet Underground on her headphones, but here was the grim reality: the piper must be paid. Opiate withdrawal always started with a shiver. 

The counselor took Laila’s photo with a Polaroid camera, disorienting her thoroughly with the unexpected flash. “Why do you need my picture?” Laila asked. 

“It’s for your patient file, and the staff who give out meds,” explained the counselor. She showed Laila the photo for inspection. Laila looked at it and frowned. She had been caught off-guard and her eyes were halfway closed. Hopefully the thing would be incinerated and destroyed upon her discharge. 

Finally, the first part of the intake process was over. “I’m going to give you a patient wristband, and we’ll head over to the detox unit,” said the counselor. “It’s on the first floor. The staff will go through your things and search for contraband. Then the doctor will give you a physical exam and they’ll run bloodwork and urinalysis. Once that’s underway you’ll be fully admitted to the unit, and you can begin the recovery process.” 

Laila attempted to muster a look of enthusiasm for her new sober life. “Will I be able to keep my phone on me?” she asked. “I need music.” 

“No,” the counselor replied with a slightly strained expression. “For obvious reasons, I would think.” 

So it was settled—she was going straight to hell in a handbasket. “Okay,” Laila sighed. “Let’s get this over with.” 

After Laila got her wristband, the intake counselor took her and the suitcase down a succession of long, sprawling hallways. They reached a set of double doors which the counselor opened with the keys around her neck. “Here we are,” she said. “Welcome to 1 West, Adult Detox.” There was a second set of doors behind the first. 

The next phase of intake turned out to be more discouraging than the first. In a small examination room, the staff went through all of Laila’s belongings right in front of her, down to the seams of her luggage, the tiny pockets of her jeans and flannel shirts, and under the insoles of her laceless Converse sneakers. Now it felt like she was going to prison. “No drawstrings, belts, shoelaces, or underwire bras. No jewelry that can be used as a weapon,” barked the attendant who glared at Laila’s dangling sword earrings. 

“My friend made these,” Laila protested, as if it would make any difference. 

“They will be stored in a safe place and you can get them back before you leave,” the attendant declared, utterly indifferent to her plight. Laila watched them remove the drawstrings from her favorite hoodie with a look of pure horror. She surrendered the earrings, along with her combat boots and studded belt. 

“We need you to get undressed,” instructed the second attendant. “We have to perform a cavity search.” 

“Cavity search?” Laila’s worry grew exponentially. 

“All you have to do is get undressed and bend over,” clarified the first, a little nicer this time. “We aren’t going to touch you, we just need to confirm you’re not hiding anything. You can wear this patient gown, just keep it open in the back.” 

But I’m a junkie, thought Laila. We hide everything, hiding is how we survive. She complied with their request, peeled off her t-shirt and jeans into a crumpled ball, and shrugged on the gown. She bent over when they asked her to. 

“Squat and cough,” said the attendant. All the extraneous parts of me have been stripped away, Laila mused to herself. Boots, belt, jewelry, clothes, all my lies and bullshit excuses. There’s nothing left to protect me from the truth about what I am. Somehow, in this soulless room with its stainless steel examination table and white walls, she found this notion comforting. Maybe there was nothing left to hide. 

Laila assumed the attendants would give back her clothing, but instead they handed her a pair of blue slip-resistant grippy socks, the ubiquitous fashion accessory of any hospital patient. “You’re going to see the MD now,” the other attendant told her. “As soon as he’s done with your physical you can get dressed. Are you cold?” 

“Whatever gave you that impression?” chattered Laila, her teeth clacking together involuntarily. She was starting to feel slightly nauseous. 

The attendants gave her one of the thin disposable paper sheets used for patient modesty during exams, which did absolutely nothing for her chills, and they led her to a smaller but otherwise identical examination room further down the hallway. The attendants left, and she waited for the doctor. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and Laila began to sweat profusely. Kicking her legs and shaking her feet helped divert some tension, but just barely. Chronic restless leg syndrome was one of many junkie mannerisms to which she was well-accustomed. It felt good to let some of that energy out and let all her limbs shake and vibrate. 

I made a mistake coming here, her animal brain proclaimed. Maybe they forgot about me and I can just slip out quietly and leave. Then the doctor came in. He was a short, squat man in his mid-to-late fifties with an abundance of dark hair everywhere but the crown of his head. Laila repeated the same information she recited to the intake counselor: she’d been using opiates on-and-off for the past year and a half, she was injecting 1 to 2 grams of heroin a day, she wasn’t taking any prescriptions, she’d never been on Suboxone or methadone or attended a twelve-step meeting. 

“Any family history of alcoholism or addiction?” asked the doc. 

Laila kicked her fuzzy blue feet, trying to offset another full body shiver. “My uncle died of an alcohol-related motorcycle accident,” she said softly, after a minute of reflection. “But he wasn’t an alcoholic.” 

The doctor glowed knowingly. “I see. If I may ask, Laila, when you first started using heroin, how did it make you feel?” 

Laila stared at him. Well, doc, it made me feel _good_ , she thought dryly. 

It was clear the doctor was trying to get to something. “Heroin is a depressant of the central nervous system, but some people respond to it differently. Did you ever feel stimulated by it?” He leaned forward and studied her carefully. 

Laila paused to consider this. “I guess,” she admitted slowly. 

Apparently this answer was the correct one, because the doctor looked satisfied. “It’s all in the genes,” he said gleefully. “Everyone’s brain chemistry is different. You might have a genetic predisposition for opiates, a natural affinity. It’s just the way you’re built.” 

Laila didn’t feel super great about drawing any immediate conclusions on the subject. But the doctor moved on and finished his examination, and he assured her the phlebotomist would come by in a couple minutes. 

“You can get dressed, by the way,” he added, leaving the door slightly ajar. Laila closed it as soon as he was gone and put her wrinkled clothes back on. Her t-shirt was drenched with sweat, emitting an especially pungent odor, and she felt dirty, like she hadn’t bathed in a week. The seconds slowly trickled by, stretching and blending into minutes. Laila re-cracked the door and began to amuse herself by listening to the sounds of distant voices and footsteps coming and going down the hall. At long last, a knock came from the other side of the door. 

“Come in,” Laila chirped, grateful the wait was over. 

The phlebotomist was a middle-aged woman of kindly bearing with a thick Eastern European accent. She assessed Laila’s forearms and track marks with a heavy brow and a foreboding expression. “No good,” she commented, eyeing a particularly mangled vein that Laila had tapped out several weeks prior. 

Laila felt bewildered. What would happen if they couldn’t draw her blood? Finally she asked, “Do you want me to do it?” 

“ _No_ ,” said the phlebotomist. She studied the vein above the crook of Laila’s elbow. It was the last decent vein, larger than all the others, and completely untouched. 

“I don’t know if that one’s a good idea,” Laila stammered. She had, in fact, made a point not to fuck with that part of her arm. The phlebotomist ignored her. Five minutes and one quarter-sized blue-black bruise later, the blood draw was over. 

Laila was next instructed to urinate in a cup. She was directed to a handicap-accessible bathroom adjacent to the exam room, and studied her sallow-looking reflection in the mirror. Perhaps it was only the horrible florescent lighting, but Laila swore her skin appeared slightly green. She had put on concealer that morning, but her dark circles were more prominent than ever. She tip-toed back to the exam room with her warm cup, spooked by her own appearance. 

A nurse came by to collect both Laila and her pee. “Time to go to the nurse’s station,” she said cheerily, as though this was a fun children’s activity. “Your room is almost ready, and in the meantime we’ll get you oriented to the unit.” 

Laila swallowed. Her throat was extremely dry. “What about medication? The intake counselor said something about Suboxone but she didn’t say when.” 

“When did you last use?” asked the nurse. 

“Yesterday.” 

“How are you feeling?” 

Laila had to laugh. “Like shit.” 

The nurse appeared sympathetic. “They’re running your bloodwork and urinalysis right now. The bloodwork takes a little while, but the urinalysis can be done in just a couple minutes. As soon as the results are in you’ll be able to start medication.” 

And so Laila was escorted onto the detox unit, like a sick and bumbling lamb to the slaughter. The nurses’ station was horseshoe-shaped and overlooked the common room, which had a long dining table by the windows overlooking the courtyard and a living room with vinyl couches and chairs and a big old TV. Beyond this was a back hallway of what was presumably patient rooms. 

The ward appeared completely empty. “Where are all the patients?” asked Laila. 

The nurse looked at her watch. “Everyone’s in group,” she replied. “They’ll be out for break in a bit.” She gestured to a chair directly across from the nurses’ station. “Sit here for a moment. We have to take vitals.” 

“Vitals?” Laila tried to unstick her t-shirt from her clammy skin. She could smell the toxins seeping out of her pores. 

“Vital signs,” the nurse told her, as if this were plainly obvious. “Height, weight, temperature, blood pressure.” 

“Do people shrink in rehab?” Laila murmured, thinking this was rather funny. She was becoming slightly delirious. 

The nurse took Laila’s height and weight from an old balance beam scale in the corner. “Now let’s get your BP,” she motioned, hurrying across the common room to the far end of the dining room table, where a large privacy screen blocked off the end of the table from view. She pulled back the screen and let out a blood-curdling scream. “Mr. Dupuis, what are you doing here?” she cried, clutching her heart with her hand. “You scared the bejeezus out of me.” 

A baritone voice, rich and low, reverberated throughout the room. “ _Waiting_ ,” said the voice, in a manner of supreme condescension. “I wanted to see how long it took you to realize I’m still here.” Every hair on Laila’s arms stood upright. It was the same sensation she got when she heard a piece of music she really liked and the harmonies were just right. If the voice wasn’t so obviously displeased, she imagined it could have belonged to God Himself. 

“Why are you still here, again?” questioned the nurse, sounding tired. “We did your vitals, you should be in group.” 

“Oh, I’m well aware,” responded the voice. “I’m waiting for my medication.” 

“Mr. Dupuis,” the nurse admonished, “we spoke about this. We cannot give you your prescription from home. You’re meeting with the psychiatrist tomorrow.” 

“It’s my prescription,” the voice huffed. “This has to be illegal.” Then the nurse stepped to the side, and from her vantage point Laila could see the ethereal sound’s source. 

Her first impression was that he looked furious, and she gasped out loud despite herself. Their eyes met and they both froze instantly, like mirror images. Laila felt the entire world come crashing down and grinding to a halt. He was truly something else: long and lean of bone and dressed entirely in black, with tousled dark hair tumbling over what appeared to be pale and angular features. A shocking white mask covered the whole of his upper face. He had the most striking green eyes she had ever seen on a person; they seemed to crackle with vitality and bore down into her soul, recognizing and challenging her. Slowly, his thin lips widened into a wolfish smile. He leaned way back in the chair, letting his gaze dip below hers and trail down her figure, taking all of her in. “Well, well,” he said appraisingly after a moment. “Welcome to the _snake pit_.” 

With that, the spell was broken. “Thanks,” answered Laila, not missing a beat, “but I just came from my step-mom’s house.” The joke was lost on her audience. 

The nurse clucked disapprovingly. “Mr. Dupuis, that is not a term we like to use here. Patients need to support each other’s recovery. Get out of the chair.” 

“You are one hundred percent correct,” he declared flatly, relinquishing the chair. Then he turned towards Laila. “Let me know if you happen to find any support in the form of clonazepam. This esteemed institution refuses to fill my prescription.” 

“Goodbye, Erik,” intoned the nurse. 

The golden-throated Mr. Dupuis left with a theatrical swoosh of his black velour bathrobe. His fuzzy blue hospital socks made Laila crack maybe a centimeter of a smile. It was like seeing Count Dracula in fluffy blue slippers. If rehab was going to be this absurd, it might not be so bad. 

The nurse took Laila’s temperature and blood pressure. “138 over 85.” 

Laila made a face. “That sounds kind of high.” 

Suddenly, the unit was flooded with patients. Laila was shocked to see so many different types of people in one place. They ran the gamut from all walks and spectrums of life: young, old, thin, heavy, slovenly, well-dressed, loudly clamoring, silently shuffling. Most of the crowd made a beeline straight for the glass door which accessed the outdoor courtyard. 

“Smoke break,” announced the orderly who appeared with a clipboard and a large tupperware bin of cigarette boxes. Laila looked at the bin with envy. She had stopped smoking cigarettes around the time she diverted the entirety of her income to heroin and rent, and the smell of tobacco was a special kind of torture. 

“Laila, your room is ready,” called another nurse. She was carrying a thin folded beige blanket, a fresh pillow, and a plastic washing bin, pitcher, and cup. Laila followed her across the common room to the long back hallway that ran the length of the entire unit. “Boys on one side, girls on the other,” she indicated, and led Laila to a room two doors down on the left side of the corridor. 

The room wasn’t anything to write home about. A cross between a dorm and a jail cell, and that was being generous: cement walls, twin beds, a small stainless steel sink and mirror, and two bulky particle board armoires with drawers. All the furniture was bolted down with the exception of two rolling bedside tables. Laila’s suitcase was sitting on top of the bed closest to the door. “I’ll take that suitcase back,” said the nurse as soon as Laila had removed her belongings. 

The nurse left, and Laila put her clothes away haphazardly, then changed into a fresh t-shirt as soon as she was done. She sat on the bed and stared blankly at the wall. Less than a minute later there was a knock at the door. 

“Hello,” said a soft-voiced woman in a wheelchair. She had a face like a Bassett hound. “You must be my new roommate.” She wheeled herself over to Laila and offered her hand. “My name’s Patricia. Alcoholic and addict.” 

“I’m Laila,” responded Laila, shaking her hand loosely. “Um, addict?” 

“Don’t worry about the verbiage, you’ll get the hang of it,” Patricia laughed, and Laila got a good whiff of her breath. She remembered with a pang that alcohol-based mouthwash was one of the items explicitly prohibited in detox. 

Another knock came at the door. “Ladies?” said the attendant. “It’s time for meds.” 

Like a lightning bolt to the spine, Laila was up and out the door. Most of the patients were still outside smoking, so there was no line at the nurses’ station. Laila stood by the little window and dug her fingernails into the back of her sweaty palms. 

“State your name and date of birth and show me your wristband,” prompted the nurse behind the glass. 

“Laila Ward, 2-21-84.” She held up her skinny wrist, band on display. 

“Laila, the doctor has prescribed you a Suboxone taper,” the nurse told her. “You are starting out with 8mg a day.” 

“How long does the taper last?” asked Laila. 

“About a week,” replied the nurse. “You’ll have to discuss the details with the psychiatrist.” She held out a tiny paper cup, jingling the pill inside. “Place the tablet under your tongue and it will dissolve in a couple minutes.” 

Laila held the pink tablet between her fingers and studied it. It was hexagonal with an imprinted “N8” on one side and a sword on the other. The sword struck her as a good omen, and she stuck the pill under her tongue only to cringe and gag at the acrid citrus taste. “It’s disgusting,” she said. 

The nurse smiled a little. “It’s supposed to be lemon-lime flavored, but it doesn’t taste great. Don’t swallow it.” 

It was probably psychosomatic, but the moment the tablet hit her tongue Laila could sense the profound shift in chemistry in every aching, sweating, screaming cell of her body. Within minutes, the whole of her being sighed in a symphony of relief; her thoughts transitioned from a choppy whirlwind to a calm and steady linear plodding. Strangely enough, she wasn’t high at all, but she wasn’t sick either. Wrapped in Suboxone’s tart pink haze, she found her way back to her room, curled up on top of the bed, and laid quietly in the dark until she could almost believe she was asleep.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Opening tracks:  
The Eels, “I Need Some Sleep”, Marsheaux, “Inhale”, The Mountain Goats, “This Year” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It was well past late afternoon when Laila awoke in her new temporary home, thanks to a merciless sunbeam which pierced the darkness of her room, shining straight in her eyes. “Ughhhh,” she murmured, slamming the pillow over her head. There were no heavy curtains or blinds to speak of in detox. Once the light was in, it was in. 

She was almost back under the same current of exhausted dreamless sleep that had claimed her when a voice came from the doorway. More light penetrated the room, this time from the other side. “Checks,” announced the voice, much louder than necessary. Laila shot up in bed, feeling irrationally angry. What the hell were checks? 

A lone nurse stood at the door with a clipboard. She looked smug. “Ms. Ward, dinner is in a couple minutes. We need you fully conscious.” 

Good luck, Laila thought. She stumbled out of bed and to her feet. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked blearily. 

“Right outside your room, to the left,” said the nurse. 

Laila pushed past the nurse and lunged for the bathroom. She slammed the heavy door, only to discover with dismay there was no lock, so she stood flush against it and closed her eyes, heart thudding loudly in her chest. There was no getting out of this now, her body informed her. As if on cue, a new wave of sickness manifested in the form of stomach cramps, and she barely made it to the toilet. I’m fucking doomed, she told herself, cradling her head in her hands. 

Five minutes later, she managed to pull herself together, scrubbing her hands until they were raw, splashing cold water on her face, and washing out her mouth from the lingering taste of medication. She pulled on her sneakers and her favorite black hoodie, ran her fingers through her hair, and traipsed over to the common area. The large room was nearly empty again, with a handful of patients clustered around the dining table and a food truck parked at the end. The smell of dinner wafted over. 

Laila walked up to the attendant who sat nonchalantly reading a gossip magazine. “Where is everybody?” 

“Most people go to the cafeteria for meals,” the attendant responded, turning a glossy page with a manicured nail. “Since it’s your first night here, you stay on the unit for monitoring. Once you complete your first assignment you get cafeteria privileges.” 

Laila stared her down. “Well, what’s my assignment?” 

“The nurse will give you everything you need.” The attendant pointed down the table dismissively. “There’s some extra trays in the food truck.” 

Begrudgingly, Laila selected a tray which turned out to contain meatloaf, carrots, mashed potatoes, and gravy. She made a face and cast a long look down at the table’s occupants. Her roommate, Patricia, sat towards the middle, and she motioned for Laila to come over. 

“Hi,” said Patricia as Laila sat down across from her. “Did you have a nice nap?” 

“It was alright.” Laila shrugged. “I could have kept sleeping.” 

“I tried not to disturb you,” Patricia told her. “It’s bad enough they have to check on us every fifteen minutes.” 

“Is that what checks are?” Laila took a reluctant bite of meatloaf. “They do it every fifteen minutes?” 

“Every fifteen,” echoed a jaundiced-looking man with long hippie hair and a beard streaked with gray. He was seated a couple chairs down from Patricia. “Once you’ve been here a couple days they’re supposed to up it to thirty, but they never do.” 

“Great,” mused Laila. She pushed the mashed potatoes around on her plate. 

“I’m Phil,” said the hippie man. “Benzo addict. I’ve been here the longest, three weeks and counting. They won’t let me go to the caf because they’re afraid I might seize up. Xanax detox is a real bitch.” He grinned with just a hint of pride. “Welcome to the unit.” 

The other rag-tag dinner attendees went around and introduced themselves. There was Ray, alcoholic and addict, a petite older gentleman who reminded Laila of a Keebler elf, and William, alcoholic, a heavyset middle-aged man with round glasses and bristling facial hair. When Laila mentioned she was new to the concept of the twelve steps, William volunteered to step in and enlighten her. “I’ve got an extra Big Book with me,” he said. “I’ll give it to you after dinner. We have a twelve-step meeting every night, so you’ll be able to experience it for yourself shortly.” 

Laila wasn’t sure how enthusiastic she felt about going to meetings every night, but she was genuinely touched by William’s offer to help her. There is community here, she realized, looking around the table at the worn and haunted faces. We’ve been chewed up and spit out by the world, and this is where we washed ashore. _Together._ Her revelry was interrupted by the elongated shadow that appeared at the far end of the table. Six sets of eyes looked up in unison at the gaunt man in black as he combed through the food truck with disgust. 

“Erik,” droned the attendant. “How nice of you to join us.” 

Erik turned to roll his eyes at her. He shook his food tray accusingly. “This is the third time they forgot to send my peanut butter,” he declared, “the _third_ time. I would like to know what drugs the kitchen staff are on. Perhaps they could put together enough brain cells to send those over instead.” 

A low chuckle circulated around the table. Laila stared at Erik with mute fascination. He was like a storm cloud in human form, electrifying the air around him. 

“Complete your first assignment, then you can go to the cafeteria and get your own peanut butter,” retorted the attendant. Erik sighed loudly and took a seat at the end of the table. Laila watched him carefully butter a dinner roll with a plastic knife and break the roll into tiny pieces. He did not remove his mask to eat, and he did not look up at her once. The table slowly emptied, until it was just Laila, Ray, and Erik. 

“Laila,” called an approaching nurse. She was carrying a small stack of papers and a black Marble notebook. “Here’s your new patient orientation materials. All the detox rules and regulations are in this pamphlet.” She handed the documents over to Laila one by one. “This is the daily schedule, and some educational materials on drug and alcohol abuse. And this is your recovery journal.” 

Laila looked up. “I’m supposed to journal?” 

“A lot of patients find it helpful,” said the nurse. “At the very minimum, you have to complete your first assignment, which is to journal the story of your addiction.” 

“Okay.” Laila flipped through the blank pages of the notebook. “Do you have any writing materials? Art supplies?” 

“You can use pencils, but the art supplies are locked away,” the nurse informed her. “Art therapy is on Wednesdays, so you’ll have the opportunity to use them then.” 

“I’m not the best writer,” Laila confessed. “Can I draw the story of my addiction?” 

The nurse paused. “You’re supposed to read the assignment one-on-one with your counselor, or sometimes people read it during group.” 

“When do I get to meet my counselor?” 

“I’m not sure,” the nurse admitted. “Most likely tomorrow, after you see the psychiatrist. In the meantime, try to complete the assignment to the best of your ability.” 

She left Laila with a pencil, and Laila took to doodling her name in large, abstract letters on the first page of her journal. Art was a natural secondary outlet for her and she suddenly ached to create something, for the first time since heroin had sucked away all her drive and inspiration. She worked on shading the letters and adding details without stopping for several minutes. 

“I like your drawing,” commented Ray, who was peering over her shoulder a little closely. 

“Thank you,” she replied. He had such a sweet, simple, childlike manner that she didn’t feel creeped out the way she might have otherwise. 

“The last time I was here, a girl drew pictures for me. I hung them in my room and they made me happy.” Ray looked down bashfully. “Do you think, maybe, you could draw something for me?” 

“Sure,” she agreed. “What would you like me to draw?” 

Ray thought about it. “I would love a garden.” 

“Okay,” said Laila. An image slowly pixelated and came together in her mind’s eye. She turned to a new page and oriented it horizontally. There she drew two big, beautiful trees standing like sentinels overlooking a heavenly garden with a gated path, which she filled with roses and lilies. The sun and moon shone together in the cloudless sky overhead. Around one tree, she entwined a flowering vine; from the branches of the other, she suspended ten glowing spheres filled with stars, like party lights. 

“Wow,” exclaimed Ray, agog at the scene before him. “You’re good.” 

Laila smiled warmly. “I appreciate that, Ray. I hope you enjoy it.” She tore the page out of the book and handed it to him, and he ran off excitedly to glean tape from the nurses’ station. 

She chose that moment to look up, and found herself ensnared in Erik’s gaze. They were now the only two left at the table, and he had been watching her intently for some time. “Not bad,” he remarked, after several seconds of prolonged eye contact. “Are you an artist by profession?” 

“I draw and paint sometimes,” she answered, “but I’m a musician by profession. I went to Berklee School of Music in Boston.” 

Erik stared at her without saying anything. Between the mask and his demeanor, he was almost completely unreadable, but Laila detected a glint in his eyes that could have been resignation. Finally he spoke. “What do you play?” 

“I’m a bassist and a guitarist,” said Laila, “and I play a little piano too.” She paused, and stretched her hand across the table. “I’m Laila.” 

Erik looked down at her hand. It trembled a little. “Erik,” he replied softly, reaching out to take it. They shook hands slowly, as if in a dream. His fingers were incredibly long and skeletal, cool to the touch, and against Laila’s clammy palm they felt oddly soothing. “I apologize if I was rude earlier,” he added, letting her hand go. “The staff is messing with my prescription and it’s driving me crazy.” 

“That sucks,” Laila sympathized. It was impossible to look away; his green eyes were almost hypnotizing. “What are you here for?” 

“Laila?” piped a man’s voice from behind them. It was William, holding his extra copy of the Big Book. He cast a suspicious glance in Erik’s direction. “I’ve got that book you asked for.” 

Erik sneered at him. “Don’t try to warp her mind with that crap.” 

William looked at Laila. “I think she’s old enough to make up her own mind,” he said matter-of-factly. 

The tension was broken as a boisterous stampede of patients descended upon the common room, back from the cafeteria. “Five minutes until the meeting, everyone,” shouted the attendant who trailed behind them. 

Laila took advantage of the opportunity to use the bathroom and retreat back to her room. She felt strangely stimulated, in more ways than one. It was empowering to create something for the first time in over a year, and she thought about how far she’d fallen behind in her path as a creative artist. I’m gonna do better, Uncle Al, she promised, brushing out the knots in her hair before the mirror. 

“Meeting time,” knocked the attendant at her door. 

The twelve-step meeting was held in what looked like a large classroom with oversized windows and chalkboards, all the way at the other end of the long back hallway. Ceiling fans spun lazily overheard to dispel the day’s residual heat. The chairs were arranged in a circle, and most of the seats were filled. Laila took an open chair that positioned her directly across the room from Erik, and he glanced up at her. 

“Good evening, everyone,” said the meeting leader. “Welcome to Tuesday night AA.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“Let us open the meeting with a moment of silence to do with as you will, followed by the Serenity Prayer,” said the leader, and the room quieted. Laila didn’t know the Serenity Prayer, so she watched everyone else’s lips as they said it: 

_“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference...”_

“Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism,” recited the leader. “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Can I please have a volunteer read ‘How It Works’ from Chapter 5 of the Big Book?” 

William raised his hand and the leader nodded. “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest...” 

Laila opened her Big Book and tried to pay attention to the reading, but she found herself distracted by the motley crowd around her. She had never been in a room with so many alcoholics and addicts before, and their frenetic energy was palpable. All around the circle she watched two dozen restless legs shake and vibrate in unison. 

The leader spoke once more. “Thank you William. At this point, I would like to ask any new members to go around the room and introduce themselves.” 

It took a few seconds for Laila to realize the entire room was staring at her, and she flushed involuntarily. “Uh, hi,” she said, failing to control the quiver in her voice. “My name is Laila, and I’m an addict.” 

She was shocked when the group replied in one great resounding voice like a Greek chorus. “Hello Laila!” 

The collective attention transferred across the circle, but there was only silence. “Erik,” coaxed the leader, “if I’m not mistaken, this is your first meeting too.” 

Erik looked up from where he sat with his elbows on his knees and his eyes cast on the floor. “You know my name,” he stated coolly. “So why do I have to say it?” 

“Because you are part of this group, and you are here as part of your mandated treatment plan,” the leader responded. “Furthermore, you did not attend last night’s meeting. The tradition is that every newcomer introduce him or herself.” 

Erik sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. “Fine.” He looked around the room at his rapt, reluctant audience. “My name is Erik.” 

The leader leaned forward. “And?” 

Some dark impulse passed through Erik; Laila saw it in his eyes. For a brief instant she was sure he was going to do something rash, like pick up his chair and throw it, but then the moment passed. He spit out the words with precision: “I’m. An. Addict.” 

The choir of voices sang, “Hello Erik!” Laila found herself joining them. 

“Thank you,” said the leader, clearly enjoying the victory. “And now I’d like to introduce our speaker for this evening...” 

Laila’s thoughts trailed off. It was hard to focus on one thing for any extended period of time. Her mind reeled with ideas, a thousand points of light shooting off like arrows into every direction, but the only thing she found she could concentrate on with certainty, the thing she kept coming back to, was Erik Dupuis. Idly, she studied him in greater detail out of the corner of her eye. He had beautifully sculpted forearms, white like marble and covered in scars, with the kind of veins Laila could only dream of. He reminded her of someone: Rozz Williams maybe, or a young Andrew Eldritch. Either way, he was undoubtedly an eccentric goth of self-imposed outsider status; she felt an instant kinship, and an implacable curiosity as to why he wore a mask. 

At some point he must have noticed her staring, because he re-crossed his arms and exhaled loudly. She averted her eyes, poking at a chipped linoleum floor tile with her foot, and did not look up again. Get ahold of yourself, girl, she told herself. Creeping on the creepy guy—what does that say about you? 

The speaker finished his long soliloquy about putting down the bottle and making peace with the death of his daughter. Hopelessly addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine, he lost his license to practice as an attorney, his child, and his marriage before he turned his life around. What a heartbreaking story, thought Laila. It doesn’t seem like there are many resolutions here, or happy endings. 

“Let’s close with a prayer,” said the leader. 

Everyone in the room stood up and held hands, forming an unbroken circle, and Laila scrambled to her feet. They shouted with a hand squeeze, “Keep coming back; it works if you work it, so work it ’cause you’re worth it!” And the meeting was over. 

“Well, what did you think?” William asked Laila, who watched Erik fly like a stray bullet to the door. It slammed angrily in the face of the person behind him. 

“To be honest, I’m not sure,” Laila conceded. “It’s helpful to hear people’s stories, but I don’t think I understand all the steps.” 

“That’s okay,” William assured her. “It’s just your first day. They’ll go through the steps in greater detail in group. Plus, there’s another meeting tomorrow. You’ll get the chance to tell everyone your story and get some feedback.” 

Laila smiled uneasily. “Great.” 

It was 9pm by the time she walked back to the common room, where the patients queued up for the last smoke break of the day. She approached the attendant with the bin hesitantly. “I don’t have any cigarettes,” she mumbled. “Is there any way...?” 

The attendant laughed. “Don’t worry honey, we’ve got a couple half-empty packs from patients who left them here.” She searched through the plastic bin. “Are Pall Malls okay?” 

They weren’t, but something was infinitely better than nothing. “Yes!” said Laila. She took the freebie cigarette and stood in the back of the line until the attendant unlocked the door to the glass hallway, which led to a door that opened onto the courtyard. The area was shaped like a right triangle with one of the corners cut off, and mostly bereft of grass. A ping pong table and picnic benches were located close to the door, alongside two smoking receptacles; towards the far end of the courtyard were two trees and an old Victorian bench. A well-worn dirt path outlined the perimeter. 

Laila bummed a light from Patricia and walked out to the center of the courtyard. The sweet night air and the nicotine went straight to her head, and she felt weightless and free. She looked up at the sky and hauled on her cigarette thoughtfully. They were too close to New York City to see any real stars, but Laila knew they were there, and the full moon cast its benevolent milky glow down upon her. I am blessed by the night, she thought. If I pray tonight, God will hear me. “ _Per aspera ad astra_ ,” she whispered, extending her hands in surrender to the vast heavens above. It was one of Uncle Al’s maxims that he had taught her. 

“ _Through difficulty to the stars_ ,” replied a low resonant voice. “I always liked that one.” 

She looked over to see Erik perched on top of the antique wood and cast iron bench, his mask shining in the moonlight. Laila found herself walking over automatically. She sat on the edge of the seat and took a hit from her cigarette. “Me too.” 

“We are all in the gutter,” Erik said, studying her closely, “but some of us are looking at the stars.” 

Laila thought carefully for a moment, recognizing this was a reference. “Is that the Pretenders?” 

It was hard to see it in the dark, but Erik might have smiled. “Oscar Wilde,” he told her, “who was paraphrased by Chrissie Hynde.” 

She nodded and dragged on her cigarette, pleased to be half-right. “So,” she drawled, “tell me what you did to wind up in this shithole.” 

He cast a long, critical look down at her and settled on her t-shirt, which was soft and faded and ripped in places, with a howling wolf on it. “Tell me what _you_ did to deserve the punishment of wearing that ridiculous shirt.” 

Now she was insulted. The lone wolf tee was one of the few items of clothing left from Uncle Al, and as far as Laila was concerned, it was a family heirloom. She would wear it until it disintegrated. “Couldn’t have been any worse than what you did to deserve that mask,” she blurted with instant regret. She saw the anger flash in his eyes and panicked— _he’s going to kill me_. 

But to her surprise, Erik burst out laughing. The sound was infectious, and pretty soon they were both laughing like genuine lunatics. It ricocheted through the courtyard like thunder. “You have no idea,” he snickered, shaking his head, and reached over to re-light her cigarette. “You’ve got balls, Boston girl.” 

She took an appreciative drag. “If I had ’em, I hawked ’em long ago,” she acquiesced. “I’ve got nothing left to lose.” 

“Nothing of real value can ever be lost,” he told her placidly. 

Laila stared at him through the tendrils of her smoke cloud. The sentiment was both comforting and unsettling; it dislodged something deep inside her. “I’ve lost plenty of valuable things,” she said quietly. “Time, money, opportunities, friendships.” 

“All of those things are replaceable,” he responded after a beat. 

She bit her lower lip. “Time isn’t replaceable,” she countered. 

“Time is a construct that doesn’t really exist,” he refuted gently. “Think about it. The past and the future are not things you can directly experience, they exist as mental states. The only time you ever truly experience is right _now_.” 

“You sound like Ram Dass,” she grinned, and puffed on the Pall Mall. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t feel bad about all the time I wasted on drugs.” 

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he agreed with deadpan seriousness. 

She snorted. “I’m not quite sure what that leaves me with.” 

“An enduring insouciance and a certain rugged tenaciousness of the spirit,” he suggested. “Or at the very least, a sense of humor.” 

“Fair enough,” she laughed. And just like that, Laila made her first friend in rehab. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Bonus track:  
The Pretenders, “Message of Love” :)


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Opening tracks:  
The Chemical Brothers, “Where Do I Begin”, Superorganism, “Something for Your M.I.N.D.”, Depeche Mode, “Clean” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The sun was just beginning to rise over the blue hills of Watchung Mountain when the sound of distant screaming pierced the fading veil of night, rendering Laila conscious. She slept harder than she had in a long time, thanks to the Vistaril she was given the night before. “It’s an antihistamine,” said the nurse who dropped the pill into her cup. “We give it to everyone.” The room was still dark, and she lay in bed for several minutes, stirring drowsily, listening to the screaming. Although she couldn’t make out any distinct words, the plaintive cry rattled her nonetheless. Today is my first day waking up in a psychiatric hospital, she reminded herself. 

There was a knock at the door. “Good morning ladies,” said the attendant. “It’s time for vital signs.” 

Laila had no idea what time it was, but the minute she was out of bed she knew it was for good. She glanced over at the slim outline of Patricia in the adjacent bed, still soundly asleep, and slipped out the door. The common room was empty with the exception of the nurse tasked with vital signs. 

“What is that noise?” Laila asked the nurse, who took her temperature and adjusted the blood pressure cuff on her arm. 

“What noise?” said the nurse, the words muffled by the pen in her mouth. 

Laila gave her an incredulous look. “The screaming.” 

The nurse laughed and jotted down Laila’s numbers. “Oh, that’s Jose; he screams every morning. He’s a regular rooster, that one.” 

There was no proper way to respond to that, so Laila stared at her feet. “I want to take a shower,” she stated after a moment. “Where do I get shampoo and soap?” 

“The nurses’ station,” replied the nurse. “You were supposed to bring your own toiletries, but I guess no one told you. We have some baby shampoo and soap you are welcome to use, or you could borrow someone else’s.” 

“I’ll do that,” muttered Laila. Ten minutes later, she had gleaned all the accessories she needed: a plastic razor from the nurses’ station, and the rest from Patricia, who was now awake and amenable to sharing. The shower room was located directly opposite the bathroom, and Laila was eager to get first dibs at the hot water. Unfortunately, the shower appeared to be broken—the water shut off automatically every 30 seconds. “Hey, I think there’s something wrong with the shower,” she called out to her roommate from the doorway. “It keeps shutting off.” 

“It’s supposed to do that,” answered Patricia. “It’s a safety thing so no one drowns themselves. You have to keep hitting the button.” 

After a tepid shower, Laila towel-dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and put on a little makeup. I still look like I’m dead, she thought miserably. Did I always look this way and I just never realized it? She was wearing one of her prized possessions, a genuine _Music for the Masses_ 1988 tour t-shirt. Laila had been a fan of Depeche Mode ever since she first heard them on the radio as a child. They were a guilty pleasure in the musical catalogue of a woman who prided herself on her punk rock attitude. 

She poured herself a cup of burnt coffee from the common room carafe and stretched out across the vinyl couch with her journal. She wanted to go to the cafeteria, but she had to complete her story assignment first. Where to begin, she pondered, scribbling in the margins. She dimly recalled the first time she ever took painkillers, at the behest of her boyfriend, but couldn’t remember much about the occasion aside from the fact that she spent the evening draped to a toilet. 

Slowly the unit began to re-populate with patients and activity. The breakfast truck arrived, cleaning staff changed garbages, and people with cafeteria privileges lined up at the exit door. Laila kept glancing up, but her new masked friend was nowhere to be found. She toasted and buttered a sad-looking bagel, helped herself to another cup of coffee, and sat down to eat with the same table crowd as dinner, minus one. 

When morning meds came, Laila received only 4mg Suboxone. “I got 8mg yesterday,” she said warily. She was nowhere near full-on withdrawal, but she wasn’t great either. Her stomach was acting up again, and she felt a deep lethargic pain in her limbs. 

“They split up the doses when you are here the whole day,” explained the nurse. “You’ll get your second dose in the afternoon.” 

Only somewhat pacified, Laila went outside to smoke with the rest of the group. She parked her ass on one of the picnic tables and brooded moodily into the distance. 

“I like your hair,” said a freckled redhead in her early thirties. She sat down on top of the table next to Laila. “I always wanted to try out shaved sides. I’m a makeup artist.” She took a drag of her Marlboro Menthol and extended a manicured hand. “Stacy.” 

“Thanks,” Laila replied, shaking it. “I’m Laila.” 

It turned out Stacy was also there for opiate addiction, and her story wasn’t entirely dissimilar from Laila’s; there was a boyfriend involved who was now in prison, and Stacy was going through rehab as part of her conditional sentencing. She had also done a couple stints in rehab down in Florida, which she did not recommend. “It’s all methheads and pill mills down there,” she declared. “You’ll come out worse than you were before you went in.” 

The group was heading back inside when a commotion broke out at the nurses’ station. “I did what you asked of me,” growled a familiar voice. “It’s not my fault you’re too dense to appreciate the medium...” 

Laila craned her head; she could see Erik and the head nurse engaged in some kind of Mexican standoff, front and center at the nurses’ station. He was wearing the black velour bathrobe and his hair was standing straight up. He did not look like he had slept. “Well?” he jeered. “Are you going to accept my assignment or not?” He held out a black Marble notebook and waved it in the nurse’s face. 

The nurse snatched the notebook from his hands and paged through it angrily. The book was filled to the brim with musical notations written in red pencil. “What is this, an opera?” the nurse snorted, thrusting the book back in his hands. “I don’t see how I can possibly accept an assignment I cannot read.” 

Erik glowered at her. “You’ve got ears, haven’t you? Give me access to that piano in the rec room down the hall. Oh yes, I’ve seen it—don’t look so surprised. The schedule states we have music therapy on Thursdays at 2:30pm.” He took a deep breath and put his hands together in supplication around the notebook. “If you would be so kind as to let me play it, I _promise_ I will make it worth your while.” 

The nurse threw her hands up in disgust. “Talk to Dr. Reed,” she said, and went back inside the nurses’ station and slammed the door. 

The rest of the patients stood there in silent shock, and Erik looked over at them for the first time. His eyes met Laila’s. “Just so you know,” he added with a mischievous glint, “they also have a guitar.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Goals group was the first order of business that morning; it occurred five days a week and was led by Otto, one of the more notorious tough-love counselors at Oak Haven. Laila followed the other patients as they shuffled into the classroom and took a strategic seat by the open windows. The breeze came in, carrying with it the faint aroma of pine, and the morning light flooded the circle with a heavenly backdrop. Laila looked around the room with a small sense of wonder. If I didn’t know better, she thought, we could be a circle of angels, heavenly cohorts crowned with golden halos. 

“Good morning everyone,” said Otto, a bald African American man in his early fifties. “I’m Otto, for those of you who are new, and this is goals group.” He passed around an attendance sheet on a clipboard with a pen. “We’re going to go around the circle clockwise today. State your name and your drug of choice, and what goals you have set for yourself today. James, let’s start with you.” 

The bearded man to Otto’s left cleared his throat. “I’m James,” he grumbled. “Alcohol and pain pills.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head slowly in a daze. “I, uh, I’m not really sure what my goals are today, because I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night thanks to my goddamn roommate.” He glared across the circle. 

“That is not my fault,” snapped Erik. He had changed into street clothes, a plain black t-shirt and black jeans, but his hair was still wild and sticking up in every direction. He ran a pale hand through it in an unconscious repetitive gesture. “I waited until you were asleep before I turned the light back on.” 

“The light’s what woke me up,” scowled James. 

“If you want to talk about rude wake-up calls,” Erik said, “perhaps we should address your incessant snoring. You _clearly_ have undiagnosed sleep apnea.” 

James jostled angrily in his chair. “I have what now?!” he sputtered. 

“Cool it guys,” Otto commanded. He turned to Erik. “Mr. Dupuis, the lights are supposed to be out by 11pm. That is a hard rule.” 

“And what if I cannot sleep?” Erik asked. 

“Then you go to the nurses’ station,” said Otto. 

Erik smirked. “So you can drug me with more pills, except the ones I’m prescribed?” 

“You’re walking a thin line, Mr. Dupuis,” warned Otto. “We are tabling this discussion for later. James, I want to re-focus and talk a little more about your recovery-related goals. I know yesterday you expressed your desire to see your wife and daughter during visiting hours on Friday…” 

Laila began to space out. The sun felt incredibly warm against her skin, as though she hadn’t experienced it in years. After a while it started to make her sleepy. “Ms. Ward?” came Otto’s voice. It startled her out of her trance. 

“Oh,” said Laila, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m Laila, opiate addict.” She glanced around the circle. “I guess my goals for today are to learn more about the twelve steps.” Otto nodded at her encouragingly to continue. “I think I’m meeting with the psychiatrist, Dr. Reed, later. He’s supposed to help me with my recovery plan, ’cause I’m not really sure what I’m doing.” 

“Dr. Reed is a she,” corrected Otto. “And thank you, Laila, those are all good goals for your first day here. Remember, guys, you gotta take it _one day at a time_. You gotta KISS—K-I-S-S. Laila, do you know what KISS stands for?” 

Laila was already embarrassed about misgendering her psychiatrist, and this last inquiry made her turn beet-red. He obviously wasn’t talking about the band. “No.” 

“K-I-S-S,” boomed Otto. He got up and wrote the letters in chalk on the blackboard behind him. “Keep It Simple Stupid.” 

She certainly felt stupid after that, and spent the next several minutes playing with the ripped knee of her black jeans as the clockwise rotation continued. Phil wanted to get ahold of his girlfriend on the phone. “She might be my ex-girlfriend now,” he commented glumly. Stacy planned on speaking to her parole officer to hear the outcome of her boyfriend’s file for appeal. Ray was meeting with his social worker to discuss his application to a halfway house in Paterson. 

When the circle reached Erik, the room quieted. “My primary goal today,” he said evenly, “is to dispel a few of the narratives I’ve heard regarding my mask.” The entire crowd shifted nervously onto the edge of their seats. “I will make this easy for you all, and keep things as _simple_ as possible.” 

“Mr. Dupuis,” interrupted Otto. 

Erik began counting off on his fingers, and his harsh tone was unmistakably bitter. “One: I am not famous. Two: I am not a celebrity in hiding. Three: I do in fact have a facial deformity. Four: I usually wear a prosthetic, but since I was sent here straight from the hospital, all of my accoutrements are at home. Five: You should be grateful my mask is here at all, otherwise none of you would be able to eat or sleep for a week, and you would have nightmares for the duration of your stay.” 

The silence of the room was deafening. “If anyone wants a more detailed demonstration of why the mask is necessary,” he concluded, “feel free to come by my room later.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

On the way out of group, Laila was flagged down by a petite woman of Indian descent wearing a white lab coat. Her dark straight hair was dyed with henna, and she bore a clear, serene expression on her youthful face. “Laila,” she said smoothly, “I’m Dr. Reed. It’s very nice to meet you. Please come with me to my office.” There was something decidedly unflappable about her presence. 

Dr. Reed’s office was tucked away in a far corner of the unit, behind a plain and otherwise unassuming door. As soon as Laila walked in she felt she had been transported to another world. It was a small oasis in the midst of sterile white-washed conformity; everything was earth-toned and the walls were lined with shelves of books, potted philodendrons, and black-and-white prints. A small bronze statue of Vishnu the preserver, who dreams the universe into existence, sat on her desk. 

“I like your office,” said Laila, pleasantly surprised by the change in decor. Even the lighting was different; the doctor had eschewed the overhead florescent lights in favor of twin celadon ginger jar lamps, which gave off a tranquil glow. She gestured for Laila to sit in a soft green swivel armchair. 

“Thank you,” replied the doctor. “I like to make things comfortable for my patients. Now, tell me about what brought you here.” 

Laila found it incredibly easy to open up to Dr. Reed. She wasn’t sure what it was—her gently imploring brown eyes, or the calm way she tilted her head as she listened to a condensed version of Laila’s history—but Laila felt _seen_ in a way she hadn’t felt before. “I guess the bottom line is, I’m not sure what I’m doing,” she finished with a sigh. “I came to New Jersey because I have nowhere else to go, and I don’t want to go back to Boston. I know my dad will let me stay at home as long as I need to, but I don’t get along with his new wife.” She laughed a little, but the sound got caught in her throat. 

“It’s normal to experience uncertainty at the beginning of treatment,” commented Dr. Reed. “If you felt any other way, it would be unnatural. Things are going to seem overwhelming at first, which is why I encourage all my patients in early recovery to see a therapist. The larger you can make your support network, the better. From there you can work on developing healthy coping mechanisms.” 

“I don’t have much of a support network,” admitted Laila. “I burned every bridge in Boston.” 

“Well,” said Dr. Reed, “being here is a good place to start. Oak Haven has a well-established IOP specifically for dual-diagnosis patients—that stands for Intensive Outpatient Program. A lot of people attend it after discharge. If you are looking for individual therapy, I have a private practice in Morris county. Addiction medicine is my specialty. I also provide medication-assisted treatment with Suboxone.” 

“I thought Suboxone was for detox,” Laila said. 

The doctor smiled. “It is,” she responded, “but it can also be used as a form of opiate replacement therapy, similar to methadone but without the same potential for abuse. Many patients find it helpful, as it eliminates the intense cravings and mood swings common in early recovery. It gives patients a little breathing room to work on themselves and what led to their addiction in the first place.” 

Laila sat back in her chair. “You’ve definitely given me a lot to think about.” 

“Indeed,” agreed Dr. Reed. “In the meantime, I would like to prescribe you an antidepressant to help with your depression and anxiety. Have you ever taken Effexor?” 

“No,” Laila answered, “but I’m willing to try it.” 

“It’s an SNRI—that’s a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. It should help manage some of the symptoms you’ve been experiencing.” 

A short silence followed, laden with relief. “Thank you,” Laila gushed with genuine gratitude. She felt as though she might burst into tears. She finally had an ally. 

The doctor smiled again. “Of course,” she replied. A knock came at the door, and she rose from her chair. “I know how scary and unfamiliar all this may seem, but you are doing better than you realize. You’re facing the right direction now. All you have to do is keep walking.” She opened the door a crack. 

“I need to speak with you,” came an urgent voice. 

“Please give me a moment,” said Dr. Reed in a steady tone. She closed the door and turned to Laila. “I’m going to check back in with you in a couple days. I want you to think about what we’ve discussed, and what type of treatment program might work best for you after discharge. I’m not a huge fan of sending patients to long-term rehab facilities, because they do not learn the ability to deal with triggers in their home environment. I believe you are a good candidate for IOP and private therapy.” She grabbed a business card from her desk and handed it to Laila. 

Laila nodded and pocketed the card. “I’ll definitely think about it and let you know. Thank you, doctor.” 

When she left the office, Laila found Erik lurking around the door. “Ah,” he quipped, “I see you’ve met the only competent medical professional here.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Addiction education group was just getting underway when Laila returned to the classroom. It was being taught by Otto. 

“Welcome back, Ms. Ward,” Otto said. He was standing in front of the chalkboard. “Please take a seat. We were just beginning our discussion of the twelve steps.” He turned to the room. “Can anyone tell me the first step?” 

James raised his hand. “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.” 

Otto wrote it on the chalkboard. “Okay. Can anyone tell me step number two?” He continued in this manner until all twelve steps were written: 

  1. _We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable._
  2. _Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity._
  3. _Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God._
  4. _Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves._
  5. _Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs._
  6. _Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character._
  7. _Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings._
  8. _Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all._
  9. _Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others._
  10. _Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it._
  11. _Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for the knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out._
  12. _Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs._



__

Laila stared blankly at the list, bewildered by all the God talk. She had no idea the twelve steps and spirituality were so intertwined. While she felt an instinctive, natural sort of affinity for the cycles of nature, the solar year and the moon’s monthly sojourn through its phases, she didn’t have much of a relationship with God proper. She wasn’t even sure she believed in a personal God; the previous night was the first time she had prayed in any way for over a decade. 

“Twelve steps to sobriety, to recovery, to wellness,” said Otto, as Erik slipped back into the room and joined the circle. “Otherwise, there are only three possible outcomes. Does anyone know what they are?” 

About half the room answered in unison, “Jail, institutions, death.” 

“That’s right,” Otto responded. “Remember, there is no cure for addiction. There is no magical treatment that will allow an addict to use or an alcoholic to drink safely. The only solution is abstinence: staying sober one day at a time, and working the program.” 

Erik snorted with derision, but if Otto heard it he ignored it. “I want everyone to think about where they are individually working the steps. It’s normal to be on the first few steps in the beginning of recovery. That will change as you start to attend meetings and get a sponsor. Let’s go around the room counterclockwise. State your name, your drug of choice, whether or not you have a sponsor, and what step you are on.” 

The man seated to Otto’s right began. He was very tan and in his early forties with an impressive pompadour. “I’m Manny and I’m an alcoholic. I have a sponsor at my home group in West Orange. I’m on step four.” 

Otto nodded. “Very good, Manny. Step four is an infamously ‘scary’ step, because it marks a crucial turning point towards lasting recovery. The philosophy of the twelve-step program is that alcoholism and addiction are symptoms of a deeper disease, what the Big Book calls a spiritual malady, but the real problem lies in character flaws that need to be faced and overcome. Identifying these traits is the goal of step four’s fearless moral inventory. Remember, we are only as sick as our secrets. To recover, we have to commit to _rigorous honesty_ , not only with others, but with ourselves.” 

Laila saw Erik roll his eyes, and bit her lip to hide a smile as the circle continued its rotation of names and steps. Most of the group appeared to be on steps one through three, which put Laila slightly at ease. She wasn’t exactly sure where she fell in the order of things; she had no qualms admitting she was powerless over her addiction, as repeated attempts at quitting had proved she could not go it alone, but the rest of it made her uneasy. With the exception of her uncle’s mystical tendencies, her upbringing had been overwhelmingly secular. It was hard enough to believe an impersonal, omnipotent being existed, let alone cared about her wellbeing. 

It was now Erik’s turn to share, and Laila felt the room fill with tension. He seemed to feed off it. “My name is Erik and I’m an addict,” he said slowly. “I do not have a sponsor, because I do not wish to put my trust in a hypocritical, non-evidence-based system. Therefore, I am not on any step.” 

“That sounds like denial to me,” remarked Otto. 

“Denial,” Erik countered, “is ignoring the fact that Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, tripped on LSD and had a so-called spiritual awakening, yet his program insists on abstinence for everyone else.” 

The room tittered, and Otto turned bright red. “Mr. Dupuis, you are seriously pushing it.” 

Erik sneered. “Are you not familiar with your own history? Bill W. took LSD in 1956 under the guidance of Sidney Cohen and Gerald Heard. He was fascinated by the research experiments of Hoffer and Osmond.” 

Otto looked like he was going to explode. Laila could practically see steam coming out of his ears. “Mr. Dupuis—” 

“According to Cohen’s research assistant, Betty Eisner, AA actually considered using LSD to facilitate spiritual awakening,” Erik continued. “To be frank, I think it’s a worthy addition. There’s a good reason I donate to MAPS every year.” 

“What’s MAPS?” someone asked. 

“The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies,” Erik replied. 

It was clear Otto was going to have to switch tactics in order to regain control. “You know what, Erik,” he said after a moment’s reflection, “you are very good at directing attention everywhere but yourself, and I can’t say I blame you. You have obviously been through a lot, and if I were you, I’d probably be mad too. However, you have earned the _privilege_ of sitting in that seat, and this is my group. If you still want to express your concerns regarding the program, we will discuss it privately.” He took a deep breath. “Patricia, I believe you’re up next.” 

The fight went out of Erik, but Laila could see the triumph in his eyes. He had managed to both make his point and ruffle Otto’s feathers, a win-win. In detox, you had to take whatever kicks you could get.


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

Opening tracks:  
Chaos Chaos, “Winner”, Depeche Mode, “Never Let Me Down”, A Perfect Circle, “The Outsider” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

By the time group was over, Laila felt as though she’d been holding her breath for hours. She wasn’t sure what it was—perhaps it was just withdrawal, but she wanted to go outside and scream at the sky. There wasn’t another scheduled group until art therapy at 2:30, leaving plenty of time to work on the story of her addiction. Armed with her journal and a stale Pall Mall, she planted herself at the base of one of the courtyard trees and let the rustling of leaves in the wind lull her into a light trance. 

A shadow fell over her notebook as she worked, and she looked up to find Stacy nursing the last of a menthol cigarette. “This place is a trip,” Stacy declared, adjusting her oversized cat-eye sunglasses. She flicked her ash with a dark red nail. “I really thought Otto was going to pop him one back in group.” 

There was no question of who she was referring to. “I know,” said Laila. “Are people always this belligerent in detox?” 

Stacy laughed harshly. “ _Yes_. There’s someone like him in every rehab, starting shit with the counselors and bitching about meds. Usually they’re not so... mysterious. Do you buy that stuff about the mask?” 

Laila thought about it. “I do,” she replied after a moment. 

“I think he’s hot,” whispered Stacy. “I’ve always had a thing for bad boys, and look how far that’s gotten me!” 

The attendant monitoring smoke break walked over to them. “Ladies, it’s time to go inside for lunch,” he said. 

Laila groaned. “Do I still have to eat lunch on the unit?” 

The attendant gave her a sharp look. “You know the rules. Turn in your first assignment, and you can go to the cafeteria for dinner.” 

The lunch truck was parked at the end of the dining room table when the patients returned inside. Laila bid farewell to Stacy, grabbed a tray, and took a seat by Patricia. She kept her notebook open and continued to write as she ate a bare bones ham-and-cheese. The lunch crowd appeared more subdued than usual; it took Laila several minutes to realize it was because Erik was missing. 

She was putting the remnants of lunch back on the food truck when she noticed the untouched tray full of individually wrapped single-serving peanut butter portions. “Oh my God,” she snickered. There had to be at least a dozen, along with a large handful of single-serving jellies and several dinner rolls. She checked the meal ticket and read what she already knew she’d find: Erik Dupuis. 

“At least he got his peanut butter,” she murmured aloud. Before she knew what she was doing she was stuffing all the peanut butter into her pockets. 

How to go about this, Laila mused. She pivoted slowly to the occupants of the table. “Hey, anyone know what room, uh, _James_ is in?” 

William replied, “He’s in room 5, next to mine.” 

Laila nodded. “Thank you.” Without saying another word, she traipsed off across the common room to locate room 5. The table watched her leave and exchanged knowing glances. “Hah, _called it_ ,” said Phil with a shit-eating grin. 

Room 5 was closer to the beginning of the detox unit, just around a slight elbow in the long back corridor of patient rooms. The door was closed. Laila stood there silently for a minute, weighing her options. She tip-toed up to the door and knocked. “Hello?” she whispered hesitantly. “Erik?” 

There was no response, so she knocked again. “Erik?” Still nothing. 

Laila cracked the door enough to see that the lights in the room were off. She didn’t want to look inside, recalling Erik’s menacing comments about the mask. Quickly she dislodged the peanut butter from her pockets, a task that was far more difficult than it should have been, and stacked them in a small cairn in the doorway. Then she backed away from the door and ran for her life. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

There was another smoke break after mid-day meds, and Laila found herself whittling away at her assignment under the glorious sun. I’ll be done with this by dinner, she thought confidently, setting the journal aside on the picnic table. An attendant had brought out ping pong balls and rackets, and she needed something to mindlessly distract herself from all the heavy thinking. She walked over to the ping pong table and bounced a ball idly in the air with a racket. Her reflexes still weren’t very good. 

“Up for a game?” came a voice. 

Laila turned to find Erik was standing at the other end of the ping pong table. He looked noticeably calmer, with his black hair tamed and slicked back off his forehead. His green eyes sparkled in the afternoon light as she met his gaze head-on. “Hell yeah,” she answered, and handed him a racket. 

It took a little while to find a rhythm, but once they hit a groove they played silently for several minutes. It felt so good just to _move_. The sun beat down on them; Laila started sweating and stripped off the flannel she then tied around her waist. 

“I like your shirt,” Erik said, nodding at her Depeche Mode t-shirt. 

“Thanks,” Laila responded proudly. “It’s a vintage tee from their 1988 tour. I got it on eBay for like, nothing. Find of the year.” 

Erik looked privately amused. “I hate to burst your bubble,” he said after an extended pause, “but that is not a real 1988 tour t-shirt.” 

Laila lunged for the ball but missed by a long shot. “What do you mean?” she snapped. “How do you know that?” She lobbed the ball back into his court, hard. 

His reflexes were far superior to hers and he hit the ball back with graceful ease. “I know that,” he said, “because I was _on_ that tour.” 

Laila missed the ball again. “You were?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “How old are you?” 

He laughed. “Well, I was sixteen at the time. I snuck in to see them both nights when they played Jones Beach.” He looked at her shirt again. “The tour shirt was black with a band photo on the front and tour dates on the back. Don’t get me wrong, your shirt’s great. It’s just... not a genuine tour shirt.” 

Laila was flabbergasted as well as extremely jealous. She took a moment to put herself together. “I can’t believe you saw them on that tour,” she said forlornly. “You don’t understand, they’re one of my favorite bands, _maybe_ my favorite. I would give anything to have seen them back then.” 

Erik shrugged nonchalantly. “It was a good show, but the sound at Jones Beach leaves much to be desired. I’m not terribly fond of outdoor venues. Their 1990 show on the World Violation tour was much better.” 

“What’s your favorite album?” she asked. This was a trick question. 

“ _Violator_ ,” he answered instantly. 

“Typical,” Laila said. 

“What do you mean,” he retorted icily. The ping pong game picked up speed. 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” she grinned, parroting his words back at him, “I love _Violator_ , but I listen to _Music for the Masses_ more.” 

“Sacrilege,” Erik hissed. “ _Music for the Masses_ is a brilliant album, ahead of its time, but it’s only the second part of their late 80’s trilogy that began with _Black Celebration_ and reached full evolution with _Violator_ , which broke them into the American market. In the context of its successor, it’s a stepping-stone.” 

“You’re insane,” Laila snorted. “It has two of their undisputed greatest hits, ‘Never Let Me Down’ and ‘Strangelove’, not to mention ‘Nothing’, which is a personal favorite.” 

“If you’re talking singles, _Violator_ had more,” he responded. “Would you like me to list them? ‘World in My Eyes’, ‘Personal Jesus’, ‘Enjoy the Silence’, ‘Policy of Truth’...” 

She sized him up from across the table. “You don’t strike me as the type to care about billboard numbers,” she countered. “ _Music for the Masses_ has a much more cohesive vision as a whole. It tells an entire story from start to finish.” 

“The same could be said for _Violator_ , which I would argue is far more nuanced in both its approach and its influences.” He crossed his arms in the manner of a recalcitrant child. “Perhaps the story is just more personally relevant to me.” 

Laila hit the ball at him as hard as she could, but he dodged it effortlessly. “There’s no need for violence,” he scoffed. 

“It’s time to shut it down, guys,” said a less-than-enthused attendant who appeared on the periphery. Suddenly the intensity of the discussion was over. Laila looked around the courtyard and realized she and Erik were the only ones left outside. 

“Good game,” Erik said amicably. He handed her the ping pong racket, and for the briefest instant their fingertips touched. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Art therapy was held in the common room at the dining table, with the overflow of patients perched on the surrounding couches and armchairs. Laila eyed the therapist’s armload of construction paper and color charcoal pencils with interest as she took the last available seat at the table. The therapist scattered the supplies across the center and began handing out paper and clipboards to the couch people. 

“Hello everyone, my name is Mindy,” said the therapist, pushing her thick wavy hair behind her ears as she sat down. “I’m the occupational therapist here at Oak Haven. Today I would like to focus on a topic you might be familiar with, but re-framed from a different perspective. Can anyone here tell me about _people, places, and things_?” 

Laila glanced around the room. These rehab folks sure loved their aphorisms. 

“We’re supposed to avoid those,” called Ray. 

The therapist nodded. “That’s correct. Now why is that?” 

“They’re triggers,” said Manny. 

“And what are triggers?” the therapist asked. 

“Triggers lead to relapse,” volunteered Stacy. 

“Yes,” said the therapist. “Now, we spend a lot of time in rehab talking about the negative side of people, places, and things, so today I want to flip the switch and focus on the positive. Our task is for you to do a drawing—of a person, place, or thing—that inspires feelings of safety and sobriety, something that makes you feel connected to the bigger picture or a higher power. It could be a special place that you visit to get peace of mind, like a park, or a certain room in your house. It could be a person you love or an activity you enjoy doing. It doesn’t matter, so long as it’s meaningful to you.” 

Laila’s head filled with ideas, but only one truly stuck. She flashed back to her favorite place in all of New Jersey, and perhaps the world: the stone living room in Norvin Green State Forest, where Uncle Al had taken her camping every year until his death. Located on a strategic hidden viewpoint along the blue trail up Torne Mountain, the “stone living room” had been constructed of large rocks, some weighing in excess of 400 pounds, to create chairs and sofas surrounding a sizable fire pit. No one knew when the stone living room was made or who had made it, but it was a favorite spot amongst locals and hikers in the know, and the views were spectacular. On a clear day you could see all the way to New York City from Oslo Rock. 

I haven’t been there in years, Laila realized. The last time she visited she had been camping with old friends from high school, and they spent the night drinking beer, roasting marshmallows, playing the guitar, and eating magic mushrooms. She always left behind a memento to honor Uncle Al’s memory: a guitar pick, a crystal, a small sketch or a poem. The stone living room even had a guestbook of sorts, encased in a plastic bag to protect against the elements, in which someone could write a note or leave an inspirational message for future occupants. 

Laila felt a rush of inspiration hit, and she grabbed a handful of color charcoal pencils and went to town. I want to see the sunrise off the mountain again, she thought as she sketched the jagged outline of the living room’s Flintstone-esque furniture. That’s the first thing I’m going to do as soon as I get out of this godforsaken place. With renewed purpose, she lost herself in the creative process. 

“Okay everyone,” came the voice of the therapist, many minutes later. “It’s time to finish up your drawing so we can go around the room and share what we’ve created.” 

Laila put down her pencil and studied her drawing with a critical eye. She had added two figures to the living room, dark silhouettes against the colorful twilight sky. Maybe that’s me and Al, she mused. She wasn’t really sure what had compelled her to include them, but it felt like the right thing to do. 

One by one, the patients held up their drawings for the others to see and gave a short explanation. Most had chosen predictable subjects. Patricia drew her son’s bedroom, and Stacy drew the beach at Asbury Park; others depicted their childhood home, their church group, their flower garden. There were even a few more abstract concepts—hip-hop battles, and a homage to the art of Monet, complete with water lilies. 

“Erik,” said the therapist, “it’s your turn.” 

Erik was sitting sideways in a vinyl armchair with his long legs slung over the armrest. He held up his clipboard and spun it around deftly in his hands. 

“What is _that_?” someone asked. 

“This,” Erik said, “is my modular synthesizer, which I designed and built myself. She is the centerpiece of my studio. I call her the Siren.” 

The drawing was entirely in black-and-white and extremely well-done, with the clean lines and neat precision of an architectural diagram. Impeccable shading, Laila observed. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets encased dozens upon dozens of rack-mount modules with row after row of mysterious knobs, switches, and buttons, all concealed beneath a veritable snake’s nest of patch cables. Laila found herself looking at Erik with new eyes. He must be some sort of genius, she speculated. 

“That’s a very unique choice of subject,” the therapist remarked, leaning forward to take a closer look. “Tell us about what this synthesizer means to you.” 

“Music is the only thing in this world that’s never let me down,” Erik replied after a moment. “It’s the only thing I really care about.” 

“What’s that in the bottom corner?” Ray asked. The shape was easy to miss amidst the fray of coiling wires and cables. 

Erik looked a little embarrassed. “Um, that’s my cat.” 

“Music is an excellent outlet,” Mindy told him, “and I appreciate you sharing something that is so important to you.” She looked around the group. “Now, I think we’re almost out of time. Is there anyone else who hasn’t spoken about their drawing?” 

From the corner, Laila raised her hand, and the therapist nodded for her to continue. “This is the stone living room,” she said, holding up her drawing. “I don’t know if any of you are familiar with it, but it’s my favorite place, probably in the whole world. My uncle used to take me camping there every year.” 

“Hey, I know that place,” said Manny. “West Milford, right?” 

“Yep,” Laila answered. “It’s the first place I’m going to visit after I leave.” 

“What a wonderful idea,” said the therapist. “I’m sure it holds many fond memories. Your uncle must be very special to you.” 

“He was,” Laila mumbled. She felt tears well up in her eyes and blinked them away. 

“I would like to end with a couple comments on what we’ve learned today from these drawings,” the therapist said. “We have illustrated that for each of us there exists a place of light and beauty, where the darkness of the world cannot touch us. This is where we find our center. Even if it’s a place that only exists as a memory or in our own minds—we must find that place and make it our home. Visit it every day to cultivate that feeling of love, that connection to the greater source, however we choose to imagine it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how we fight addiction.” 

After the group dispersed for some free time, Laila walked over to Erik. He was still lounging in the armchair, adding finishing touches to the Siren. There was nothing on the agenda until dinner. “Your drawing is amazing,” she told him. “I had no idea you have a studio. Do you make electronic music?” 

“I do,” he replied, “but it’s the recording studio that keeps me afloat... amongst other things.” 

“Where’s your studio?” 

“Brooklyn.” 

“Any chance you’re looking for a session bassist?” It was only a half-joke. “I can also play the jaw harp and the kazoo.” 

He gazed at her with perfect seriousness. “I’m always looking for musicians.” 

Neither of them said anything for a moment. “Tell me more about the Siren,” Laila requested. She plopped down on the couch horizontally. 

“It all started when I was a kid,” Erik said. “My classical training began quite early. My mother was an opera singer of some renown, so she encouraged my musical aptitude, but I drove her crazy. I used to mess around with the piano, do things with the strings inside rather than play with the keys. I got my first synth in 1984, when I was twelve. It was a piece of crap, so I took it apart and started experimenting with it. Then I got into making things with electronics and building my own circuits from scratch. I started modifying old analog synths and... well, that was pretty much it.” 

“Holy shit,” she muttered. 

“The Siren is the culmination of over two decades of experimentation with synthesis,” he added. “She weighs nearly 2000 pounds. I had to triple reinforce my floor, and my studio is in a sub-basement.” 

“Wow, I wish I could meet her,” Laila commented, as though the Siren was a person. 

“Maybe one day you will,” he replied lightly. 

“Mr. Dupuis, the social worker is waiting for you,” announced the nurse who appeared over the back of the couch. She looked down the bridge of her nose at Laila. “Ms. Ward, you’re next in line after him.” 

Erik grinned impishly at Laila. “Time to meet my next victim,” he said saucily, and vaulted off the chair. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Laila busted out her journal and continued to work on her assignment until she was certain she couldn’t write another word. I’m tapped out, she thought, sprawling out on the couch and closing her weary eyes. Her brain was exhausted, and the world seemed to spin. It could have been minutes or hours before she was finally roused by a voice repeatedly saying her name. “Laila? Laila Ward?” 

“Yes?” answered Laila automatically. She turned over and fell right off the couch. 

A tall figure loomed before her. She wore horn-rimmed glasses and a button-down shirt with a matching two-piece suit, and she looked as tired as Laila felt. “I’m Melanie, the social worker,” she said. “It’s time for our appointment.” 

Melanie’s office was not the temple oasis Dr. Reed’s had been. It boasted all-around wood paneling, and the shabby walls were plain and undecorated. With a cringe, Laila noticed the stucco ceiling tiles were covered in brown stains. 

“Have you completed your first assignment?” Melanie asked, once Laila took a seat across from her desk. 

Laila shifted around in the chair uncomfortably. It was a desk chair with wheels, and for some reason the arm rests were sticky. “Yes,” she replied. “Do I give that to you?” 

“Please,” said Melanie. Laila handed her the journal, and she paged through it for a minute, tapping her lips with a pen as she skimmed the text. “This is good, Laila. I understand you spoke with Dr. Reed about attending the IOP here after discharge.” 

“I did.” 

“We’re looking at a discharge date of Monday or Tuesday for you,” Melanie told her. 

Laila was a bit taken back. “I wasn’t aware it would be so soon,” she said slowly. 

“The majority of the time, insurance is only willing to cover one week in detox,” Melanie explained. “It depends on your plan. Sometimes they’ll pay for more under special circumstances. The IOP runs four days a week, Monday through Thursday, from 9am to 3pm. You’ll be able to see a psychiatrist for meds if you need them, and attend group much in the same way you have been.” 

“That sounds good, I guess.” 

“There’s a few more forms we need you to fill out for your patient file,” Melanie added. “They don’t like giving them out during the intake process because it’s too overwhelming for the patient.” 

“Okay,” Laila agreed, a little hesitantly. 

These forms were like nothing Laila had seen before. Page after page of questions about individual drug histories ranging from marijuana to crack, drug use frequency questionnaires, and tables to determine the total amount of money she had spent on drugs throughout her addiction. She squinted and watched the words on the pages blur together. “Do you have a calculator?” she asked. “This is gonna take a while.” 

Laila worked steadily for several minutes before handing the forms back to Melanie, who turned away from her computer screen and gave her full attention to the documents at hand. She studied them quietly for some time before she put them down on the desk and looked squarely at Laila. 

“There is something I want to bring to your attention, Laila,” Melanie said. “A discrepancy in your calculations.” 

“What do you mean?” Laila questioned. 

Melanie pushed the glasses up on her nose. “You say here you were making around $30,000 a year between music, bartending, and other freelance gigs. However, the total amount of money you spent on drugs was closer to $60,000 a year.” 

Laila stared at her disbelievingly. She hadn’t anticipated this degree of scrutiny. She didn’t speak or move a muscle, and silence weighed heavily upon the room. 

“Where did the extra $30,000 come from?” Melanie eventually asked. 

A rush of heat hit Laila. “Um, my parents.” 

Melanie leaned towards her. “Are you saying your parents gave you $30,000?” 

“No,” Laila stammered. She was sweating, and she felt the blood throbbing in her temples. “I, um, I had another income source.” 

“And what was that?” inquired Melanie. 

A dam burst somewhere inside her. “I, uh, used to work as a dominatrix,” she admitted, staring down at the floor with its worn gray carpet. 

“So you were a sex worker,” Melanie said. 

Laila glared at her. “I _never_ had sex with them,” she retorted. “I never even touched them.” 

“You didn’t mention this in your intake interview or your journal,” noted Melanie. 

The tears were coming in hot, and Laila couldn’t fight them. “It’s not something I like to talk about,” she gritted through clenched teeth. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to clock that nosy bitch in the face. 

Melanie tapped her chin thoughtfully with a pen. “Maybe it’s something you need to talk about,” she offered after a beat. 

“I’m fine,” Laila insisted. She got up so abruptly that the chair rammed violently into the wall behind her. “I think we’re done here.” Her voice was starting to crack. 

“Wait,” Melanie protested, but Laila was out the door before she could hear another word. She slammed it behind her as hard as she could and began to hyperventilate. 

“FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. The sound echoed down the corridors, and it was satisfying to let it out. “FUCK FUCK FUCK!” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It didn’t take long for a concerned staff member to come running. “Ms. Ward!” exclaimed the attendant, who was clearly surprised to find her huddled on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. “Ms. Ward, are you okay?” 

“No,” clipped Laila, shaking so hard her teeth clacked together. She couldn’t move. 

“Come on, let’s get you up,” coaxed the attendant. He helped her to her feet. 

“I want to go lie down,” she murmured. It felt like she couldn’t get the air into her lungs fast enough. Entire scenes flashed before her eyes, things she thought she’d long suppressed with drugs, and she crumpled forward in agony. I am finally drowning in my own bullshit, she thought. I am the scum of the earth. 

“Let’s get you to your room,” the attendant said, supporting her weight as he escorted her down the hall. “Easy does it.” 

As they rounded the corner, Erik approached from the other direction. His mouth fell open in a rare display of shock. “What are you doing?” he yelled at the attendant. “Leave her alone!” 

“She’s having a panic attack,” snapped the attendant. “ _Get out of the way._ ” 

Erik flattened himself against the wall. “Don’t you dare drug her against her will,” he threatened. 

The attendant gave him a nasty look as they passed. “Now is not the time, Mr. Dupuis.” 

Gradually, they made it to Laila’s room, where the attendant carefully deposited her onto the bed. “It’s gonna be okay, Laila,” he told her. “I’m going to get the nurse and we’re gonna give you something to help you calm down. Okay?” 

Laila sniffled and nodded. Maybe this wasn’t real, she thought desperately, maybe none of this was happening. 

“I’ll be right back,” the attendant assured her, and left. 

Erik’s voice came from the doorway “Laila, are you alright?” 

“You are not allowed in here,” hissed the nurse who hurried into the room. She was carrying a capped syringe. “Hello Laila,” she said in a much softer tone. “I know you’re feeling upset right now, and that’s okay. Being here can be a lot to process at first, and it can bring up bad feelings for people. Just try to remember that you are in a safe place, and we are here for you.” She paused. “I want to give you a fast-acting tranquilizer to help calm you down. It’s very mild. Is that okay?” 

Tears came once again, unbidden, at the sound of a caring voice. Laila blinked them away and nodded. 

Gently, the nurse administered an intramuscular shot in the deltoid muscle of Laila’s arm. After so much repeated trauma with needles, she barely felt the sting. “Try to lie down and rest,” the nurse said. “I’m going to turn off the light and we will come back to check on you in a little bit.” 

The shot hit her almost instantly; a wall of heavy sedation that blanketed her, head to toe, with the rhythmic lull of a ship deep at sea. “Thank you,” Laila managed to squeak. The nurse helped her get under the covers, and she turned off the light and left. Time soon ceased to have meaning and Laila floated, thoughtless and empty and free. 

“Laila, I’m still here,” came Erik’s voice after several minutes. He was sitting in the doorway with his head in his hands. “Look, I don’t claim to know or understand what you’ve been through, but I can tell you this: I would never begrudge anyone what they felt they had to do to survive. Whatever it is that’s bothering you, it’s behind you now. Don’t give it power. Don’t let it consume you.” 

Then he took a deep breath, and began to sing. 

Despite the haze of medication, Laila recognized the song from the first three notes and shuddered from the depths of her being. His voice was alchemical gold rippling through the air, piercing the darkness of her despair like a ray of sunshine in a mine. 

_“I’m waiting for the night to fall  
I know that it will save us all  
When everything’s dark  
Keeps us from the stark reality _

_I’m waiting for the night to fall  
When everything is bearable  
And there in the still  
All that you feel is tranquility”_

She never thought she would hear a soul that could hold a candle to Dave Gahan, or Martin Gore for that matter, but this was no candle. It was the sheer fire of heaven itself, restrained but unbridled enough to hint at its full power. She wept silently in awe of its brilliance, the rolling hot tears christening her cheeks. 

_“There is a star in the sky  
Guiding my way with its light  
And in the glow of the moon  
Know my deliverance will come soon _

_I’m waiting for the night to fall  
I know that it will save us all  
When everything’s dark  
Keeps us from the stark reality _

_I’m waiting for the night to fall  
When everything is bearable  
And there in the still  
All that you feel is tranquility _

_There is a sound in the calm  
Someone is coming to harm  
I press my hands to my ears  
It’s easier here just to forget fear _

_And when I squinted  
The world seemed rose-tinted  
And angels appeared to descend _

_To my surprise  
With half-closed eyes  
Things looked even better  
Than when they were open _

_Been waiting for the night to fall  
I knew that it would save us all  
Now everything’s dark  
Keeps us from the stark reality _

_Been waiting for the night to fall  
Now everything is bearable  
And here in the still  
All that you feel is tranquility”_

Erik got up and slowly closed the door, until it was open just a crack. He was fully aware that there was an audience of wet-eyed nurses and patients lingering around the corner. “Good night Laila,” he whispered. Then he turned around and left. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Bonus track:  
Depeche Mode, “Waiting for the Night”


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

Opening tracks:  
Au Revoir Simone, “Crazy”, La Femme, “Always in the Sun”, Depeche Mode, “Dream On”, Lou Reed, “Perfect Day” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It was 6am Thursday morning, nearly twelve hours later, when Laila awoke from her drugged slumber and slowly came back to herself. Remnants of the previous night surfaced at random, shuffled like playing cards out of order: the delicate prick of a needle, sensation of the floor falling away beneath her as she staggered down the hallway, the social worker’s hard and questioning eyes behind the glare of her glasses. Then there was the voice from heaven, an incantation ringing in the dark and binding her soul with a golden tether. Laila wondered if she dreamed it all. 

“Good morning sweetheart,” came Patricia’s voice from the next bed over. Her tone was extra gentle. “How did you sleep? Are you feeling better?” 

“I think so,” Laila said, clearing her throat several times. She was still raw from crying. “I need water.” 

“Take some from my pitcher,” Patricia offered. She filled a small plastic cup with shaky hands and passed it to Laila, who drank it down greedily and thanked her. 

The morning proceeded much as the previous one had: vital signs at the end of the dining room table, followed by a lukewarm prison shower and bitter black coffee. Laila borrowed Patricia’s blowdryer because she found the white noise and hot currents of air comforting. I’m going to do better today, she thought as she stared herself down in the mirror, fluffing her hair. The previous night’s confession had caused a subtle but seismic shift in her bearing, and she felt lighter than she had in years. Feelings long repressed now rippled easily to the surface. 

With a few minutes to kill, Laila found herself outside with the early morning smokers, cigarette in hand. It could have been her imagination, but it seemed as though the others were giving her a wide berth. Great job Laila, she told herself. Way to freak out and estrange yourself by day two. The sun’s merciless glare blinded her, and she shielded her eyes with her hand. Beyond the curved glass panes separating the ward from the courtyard, she watched Erik meander over to the dining room table and fill a styrofoam cup with coffee. The sight of his long silhouette tugged at something deep inside her. As if he could sense it, he looked up and over at the window. A moment of hesitation came and went—and he waved. Slowly, she waved back. 

By the time she came inside, the line for the cafeteria was well underway. Laila went to stand at the end of it and swallowed her nerves. 

“Hey,” Erik said after a beat. He wasn’t quite looking her in the face. “How are you doing?” 

“A lot better,” Laila heard herself say in a strange voice. “Thanks.” 

His eyes finally met hers in a jolt that registered somewhere in her chest. The energy in his gaze seemed to hum. “Glad to hear it,” he replied, after what could have been a minute or an hour of silence. Laila felt her skin tingle. 

It was a long walk to the cafeteria, via the serpentine path out of the detox unit and into the administrative building. From there they took a side stairwell up to the second floor. The cafeteria was small and low-lit, with long bench seats and bolted down tables. An aroma of eggs and bacon grease permeated the shimmering air from stainless steel steam tables. Laila noticed that all the plates were styrofoam and the tableware was plastic. She grabbed a tray and eschewed the short queue for the hot station in favor of yogurt, granola, and a banana. 

Erik took the seat opposite Laila’s at the long table claimed by the detox patients. There was nothing on his tray except coffee, creamers, and sugar packets. 

“You want half my banana?” Laila offered. She held it out still sheathed in the peel. 

Erik looked down at it as though it would bite him. “No thanks.” 

Stacy clamored down on the seat next to Laila, her many gold bangles jingling in a chaotic symphony. “Hey girl,” she said breezily. “Hope you’re feeling better.” 

Laila stared into her yogurt. Not for the first time she wondered exactly how much of a spectacle she’d made of herself. “I am,” she murmured, slightly mortified. 

Stacy swung her head over to Erik. She leaned across the table and pointed her fork at him. “So have you thought about what I asked?” 

Erik did not look at her, and Laila could immediately sense his irritation. He blew the steam off his coffee and took a small sip. “I already told you no,” he replied curtly. 

“Oh, come on,” Stacy pleaded. “Just one song by Justin Timberlake.” 

Erik slammed his fist down on the table. It wasn’t super loud, but the rattling startled Laila nevertheless. “ _No_ ,” he repeated. “I don’t take requests, I’m not a DJ.” He spit out this last word as though it were the most abhorrent thing on earth. 

Stacy slumped in her seat. “Ugh, fine.” 

Erik’s eyes met Laila’s, and he rolled them dramatically for her benefit. “This is why I don’t like to sing in public,” he told her. 

Laila cracked a smile for the first time that morning. 

“I am going to play an original composition for everyone later,” he added. “You will have to content yourself with that.” 

Stacy peered at him like she wanted to say something. “If heroin had a voice,” she finally burst, much louder than necessary, “it would sound like you.” 

The entire table quieted as Erik considered her statement. “That might be the nicest horrible thing anyone’s ever said to me,” he said, more amused than annoyed. 

Stacy turned to Laila. “You’re a musician too, right? You guys should start a _band_.” 

It was Laila’s turn to flush. “Yeah, um...” 

“...It doesn’t quite work like that,” Erik finished. 

The remainder of breakfast passed without incident. On the way out the door and back to the unit, Stacy grabbed Laila and pulled her aside to the end of the line. “Laila,” she intoned, her handsome face beaming, “that dude _likes_ you.” 

Laila wanted to sink into the earth. “We barely know each other.” 

“Hah,” Stacy guffawed, slapping her thigh for emphasis, “that doesn’t matter in rehab. You can’t fool me, I know thirteenth stepping when I see it.” She winked and resumed a brisk walk down the hallway. 

“Wait a minute,” Laila called out behind her, struggling to keep up on multiple levels. “What’s the thirteenth step?” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Morning meds were doled out as the cafeteria-goers reentered the detox unit. Laila stood in line patiently, only to discover it was the first step-down day of her Suboxone taper. “6mg total,” said the nurse who handed her the tiny cup. “That’s 3mg, twice a day. Tomorrow you’ll get 2mg, twice a day. By Monday you’ll be home free.” She smiled, but the sentiment did not comfort Laila. She felt shaky with nerves and too much caffeine, and she ran to the bathroom afterwards. 

Goals group was next, and the patients staggered into the classroom in the manner of weary farm animals following the herd, running on routine instead of instinct. If we followed our instincts, thought Laila, we’d have all jumped the fence by now. She took a seat by the open windows, and Stacy sat next to her. 

Erik was the last person to arrive, and he took the only open seat directly to Otto’s left. Laila read the obvious displeasure in his eyes and tried not to smirk. “Mr. Dupuis, so good of you to join us,” Otto said as he handed him the clipboard. “Why don’t we start with you this morning? Name, drug of choice, and your goals for today.” 

Erik scribbled his name on the attendance sheet and passed it along. “Erik, opiate addict,” he said with a wave and a small sigh. “I’ve been here 72 hours as of this morning, and I was planning on signing myself out against medical advice, but I’ve... _reconsidered_.” He stared at the floor. “I’m going to give this recovery thing a try.” 

Otto looked extremely smug. “That is an interesting turn of events, Erik. May I ask what changed your mind?” 

Erik shifted in his chair. “I’m not sure.” His eyes flickered across the room. Laila felt Stacy’s elbow in her side and tried not to squirm. 

“That’s alright,” Otto told him. “Sometimes these things only become clear with time and perspective. If you had to set one concrete goal for yourself today, what would it be?” 

Erik cracked his knuckles. “I’d really like to play that piano.” 

“Let this be a lesson to you all,” boomed Otto. “Listening to music causes a release of dopamine—that’s the hormone responsible for the high you’ve all been chasing. Music is a very effective tool when working to reacclimate the body with naturally occurring levels of dopamine, sans drugs.” He nodded at Erik. “Thank you for sharing.” 

The circle continued around the room. By the time it got to Laila, her palms were sweaty. “I’m Laila,” she said, “here for opiates.” She took a deep breath and looked at the others’ faces, a sea of hope, reluctance, and apathy. “I realize I haven’t been entirely truthful with myself about some of the things addiction has led me to do, so I guess that’s my goal for today—to stay honest and keep looking at my own behavior.” 

“That’s very insightful, Laila,” Otto remarked. “Do you know what FEAR stands for?” 

Laila shook her head. 

Otto grabbed the chalk. “F-E-A-R,” he recited, writing it on the board. “Fuck Everything And Run, or Face Everything And Recover. The choice is yours.” He gazed at her with wise owl eyes. “It sounds like you’ve chosen the latter.” 

She nodded. “I have.” A gentle current rustled the window shades and filled the room with the earthy smell of leaves and the mountain, and the sun emerged from behind a cloud, bathing the circle and its occupants in light. 

“Very good,” commended Otto. His small circular glasses reflected white in the sunlight. “Stacy, you’re next.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

A short smoke break followed group, during which Laila noticed her journal was missing. With a cringe, she realized she must have left it in the social worker’s office. I’m never going to get it back now, she thought miserably. I’m going to have to beg for drawing paper. She hauled hard on her cigarette and brooded. 

“Finish up, Ms. Ward,” called the attendant at the other side of the courtyard. “Nursing education group is going to start in a couple minutes.” 

Laila hopped down from her seat at the top of the wrought iron Victorian bench. She preferred it over the picnic table because it was further away from the door; from the right angle she could imagine she was in a park and not a hospital. “I lost my journal,” she told the attendant as they went back inside. “I think I left it in Melanie’s office.” 

“You’ll get it back,” assured the attendant who ushered her onwards. 

Nursing education group was run by Cathy West, a longtime veteran of Oak Haven’s nursing department and psychiatric nurse practitioner going on twenty years. She was a preceptor to students and a figurehead of stability in the eternally rotating staff of drug counselors, attendants, and RNs. “Come in,” she said as Laila and a few other stragglers rejoined the class. Despite the scrubs, Cathy West had a smart appearance, with turquoise accessories that perfectly matched the brilliant sky blue of her eyes. Her fluffy brown hair was pulled back in a butterfly hair claw. 

“Welcome, everyone, to nursing education group,” Cathy said, making eye contact as she glanced around the room. “My name is Cathy West. I’m the head psychiatric nurse practitioner here at Oak Haven. Today I want to discuss a phenomenon you may or may not have heard of, but I guarantee you will all be familiar with. Does anyone know what cognitive distortions are?” 

The room was silent. Erik slowly raised his hand. 

“Yes?” 

“Cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns,” he replied. “They’re a self-perpetuating form of negative thinking.” 

“That’s correct,” the nurse said. “Cognitive distortions cause us to perceive reality _inaccurately_. Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive behavioral therapy, pioneered the work on this concept. It was later expanded upon by David Burns with detailed names and examples. I’m passing around a list of some of the most common cognitive distortions so we can review them together.” 

The stack of stapled pamphlets made its way around the room. “Would anyone like to read the first distortion out loud?” Cathy asked. 

Laila raised her hand and cleared her throat before proceeding. “Distortion one,” she read. “Overgeneralization. In this distortion, a person comes to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, they expect it to happen over and over again. A person may see a single unpleasant event as part of a never-ending pattern of defeat.” She sat back and stared at the paper. “Yeah, I do this all the time.” 

“You’re not alone, many people do,” Cathy told her. “Can you give us a specific example of overgeneralization from your own life?” 

Laila grimaced. “Well, I failed my Music Composition final and decided college wasn’t for me. Does that count?” 

Cathy smiled at her. “It counts. Would anyone else like to chime in?” 

“Assuming I’m going to be alone forever because my wife left me,” Manny declared. The room laughed with a mixture of sympathy and recognition. 

“That’s an excellent segue into the next distortion,” the nurse responded. “Would you like to read distortion number two?” They continued in this manner until the entire list was covered. Laila’s head was spinning by the end of it. Black-and-white thinking, catastrophizing, personalizing, blaming—she was guilty on multiple fronts. 

“Cognitive distortions trap us in a repetitive, reinforcing pattern of feeling bad about ourselves,” Cathy explained. “This can lead to low self-esteem and a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in regard to future outcomes. Cognitive distortions can be undone, but it takes lots of effort and practice every single day. Does anyone have an idea about how to do that?” 

The room was quiet. “I’ll give you a hint,” the nurse said. “You’ve already taken the first step.” There were still no volunteers. 

Erik raised his hand once again. “Identifying the distortion?” he offered. 

“Precisely.” The nurse nodded. “I can see you are familiar with this process.” 

He shrugged. “Aside from moral gray areas, which I excel in, I’m a very black-and-white person. It’s not hard to see the fallacy in my own thinking.” He ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled. “I suppose I should also mention I have a well-meaning friend who fancies himself my amateur psychologist.” 

“Ah,” Cathy mused, “if only we could all be so lucky.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Erik told her. 

“So we identify the distortion. I highly recommend that each of you utilize your journals to keep a running list of the distortions you are individually prone to. David Burns called this keeping a daily mood log, but you can call it what you like. Now, what’s next?” 

No one answered. “Examining the evidence,” continued the nurse. “Look at your thoughts and objectively decide whether they represent an opinion or a stone-cold fact. For example, ‘I’m a failure’ or ‘there’s something wrong with me’ are opinions. ‘I forgot to take out the trash’ is a fact.” 

“I have a suggestion,” Laila piped up. She hadn’t realized she was going to speak until the words came out. “What about self-compassion?” 

“Tell me more about that,” said Cathy. 

Laila blushed. “Well, talking nicely to yourself, like you would talk to a friend.” 

“There’s a name for that,” the nurse informed her. “It’s called the double standard method. Can you imagine if we talked to our friends the way we talk to ourselves?” 

“There’s something my uncle used to say,” Laila added. “ _Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars._ ” 

“ _You have a right to be here_ ,” Erik finished the quotation. “That’s Max Ehrmann’s ‘Desiderata’.” 

Laila stared at him like he read her mind. “You know it,” she breathed. 

He smiled at her. “I do. Would you like me to finish?” 

The words wouldn’t come out of Laila’s mouth, so the nurse simply said, “Please.” 

Erik looked around the room. “ _And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy._ ” 

He spoke without a trace of irony, and the walls seemed to resonate with his words. “On that note,” Cathy concluded, “I can’t think of a better way to end group.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“I have to ask,” Laila said. She was sitting on the courtyard bench in the sun-dappled shade, cigarette in hand, legs crossed. Stacy had loaned her a pair of giant round purple sunglasses, which she instantly fell in love with and never planned on returning. “How did you recite that entire poem from memory?” 

Erik was slowly circling the ash tree to her right, studying it intently. It was the largest of the trees in the courtyard, and beginning to show its autumn colors. He ran his fingers over the cracks in the bark and tugged lightly on the bottom-most branches. “That wasn’t the entire poem,” he commented after a moment. 

“I’m aware of that,” Laila replied. “It was the last paragraph. How did you do it?” 

He stopped his survey and came over to sit on the bench. “I spent large portions of my childhood in the library, and I have an excellent memory.” 

“My uncle knew that poem by heart,” Laila told him. “He had a poster of it and he used to read it to me when I was a kid.” 

Erik looked over at her. “What else did he read to you?” 

“Oh God, everything,” said Laila. “It started with Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and it never stopped, not until he died. He’s the one that taught me to play bass, you know. Guitar too. Everything I learned about music I owe to him.” 

“Sounds like he was a good guy.” 

“He was the best. Black sheep of the family. He built an orgone accumulator in our backyard. It’s still there; my dad hates it but he can’t bring himself to tear it down. I’ve taken up his mantle now.” She grinned and blew out a large smoke ring. 

“Orgone accumulator...” Erik scratched the back of his head. “He studied Wilhelm Reich?” 

“Amongst others,” said Laila. “He was a big fan of Carl Jung, Carlos Castaneda, Joseph Campbell, _The Power of Myth_ and all that. Polar opposite of my dad.” 

“What do you think he would want for you now?” 

“I think he’d want me to be happy,” she answered softly. “He told me there was nothing more important than accomplishing the Great Work.” 

Erik looked her deep in the eyes with a sudden intensity that alarmed her. “Laila, do you know what those words mean?” She watched sparks collect and fly to the center of his being and down into the dark of his pupils. 

Laila grasped at the flannel that had slipped off her shoulders. She felt overexposed, like she had revealed some sort of secret. “I think so,” she whispered. It was impossible to break eye contact. All around her the exterior world seem to crumble, as though the universe existed for the sole purpose of leading her to this very moment. 

But the world didn’t end, because an attendant walked over. “Lunch time, guys,” he said. He watched them as they sat there locked in silent communion. 

“ _Guys_ ,” repeated the attendant. He looked back and forth between them. 

Erik finally turned and glared at the attendant. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “You should really have an arborist take a look at that ash tree. It has all the signs of an emerald ash borer infestation.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The conversation at lunch was much less serious, as Stacy decided to wedge herself between Laila and Erik at the table. In a strange way, Laila was almost grateful. He brings out something in me that I forgot existed, she thought, glancing over surreptitiously while he methodically peanut buttered a dinner roll. She looked down and picked at her plate of chicken nuggets and fries, disgusted by the grease on her fingers. It was extremely hard to eat. 

Loss of appetite was only one of several withdrawal symptoms she was beginning to notice with the decrease in Suboxone. “I can’t stop sweating,” she told Stacy as they left their plastic trays on top of the garbage bin bolted to the floor. 

“Hah,” Stacy said. She dumped the trash off her lunch tray with vehemence. “Just wait ’til you get down to 1mg or less. I’m at 2mg right now and I’m climbing out of my skin. You’re gonna want to burn the world down and fuck everything in sight.” 

“Great.” 

Stacy gestured with her eyes. “You might _already_ want to do that,” she noted demurely. 

Laila didn’t have to look to know who she was indicating. “You need to stop,” she protested, failing to hide the smile that broke out on her face. 

“I’m not doing anything,” Stacy replied sagely. “I just call it like I see it.” 

They all went back to the courtyard, where the smoke breaks seemed to go on like linked chains in perpetuity. We spend way more time smoking than sitting in therapy, Laila thought. I’m definitely going to be addicted to nicotine by the time I leave. She kicked at a pebble on the ground. A person had to choose their battles. She took a seat at the picnic table and watched the other patients play ping pong. 

A few minutes later, Erik slid down on the other side on the table. “So,” he said casually, brushing a leaf off the table, “tell me what happened with school.” 

Laila’s mood plummeted. “I knew you were going to ask me about that.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. 

“You don’t need school to become a great musician,” Erik told her. 

“I know,” she replied. “The truth is, I sort of lost it junior year. I was doing shows every weekend, and let some of my grades slide. That culminated with me failing my Composition final. Then I got an offer to go on tour and figured, screw it, why am I putting myself in debt when I could be out making a name for myself?” 

“And what happened?” 

“I took a leave of absence. Berklee’s very forgiving with that sort of thing. In fact,” she scoffed, “I’m still on a leave on absence. It’s been six years. I’m also still in debt.” 

“How was the tour?” 

“Horrible.” She laughed. “They were a hippie jam band. Not really my thing. I’m more Lou Reed than Jerry Garcia, if you couldn’t tell. I did it for the experience.” 

“Lou Reed, huh?” Erik rubbed his chin. “You know the Velvet Underground played their first paid gig right in this town, at the local high school prom.” 

Laila’s eyes grew wide. “Are you for real?” 

“I am. Do you know who John Cage is?” 

She thought for a moment. “He’s a 20th century composer, that’s all I remember.” 

“Have you ever heard of the prepared piano technique?” 

“Does it have to do with modifying instruments?” 

“Yes. John Cage predicted the rise of electronic music in 1939 when he said, ‘Percussion music is revolution.’ He modified the piano with household objects—nuts, bolts, anything you can think of—to transcend the chromatic scale, turning the piano into a true percussive instrument. You know the piano in ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’? That was a prepared piano, modified with a chain of paper clips.” 

“Sounds like what you described doing as a kid,” she remarked. 

“Cage did it forty years earlier. He was as avant-garde as they come. His most infamous work involves the performer sitting in silence for the entire four-minute, thirty-three-second track. People hated it, but he did it to bring attention to the fact that all sounds are inherently musical. Have you ever been in an anechoic chamber?” 

“Once, for school.” 

“And in the absence of sound, what did you hear?” His eyes sparkled. “There is still music to be found, that of the living body—the rise and fall of the breath, the rhythmic pumping of the blood in circulation. There is no silence without sound; they exist on a single continuum. _Uni-verse: one song._ The idea fascinated Cage, and spurred the birth of ambient music decades later. Every modern composer owes their freedom to him.” 

“Wow.” 

“He said, ‘Two people doing the same thing is one too many.’ You would do well to remember that when you go back to your studies. Don’t allow yourself to get boxed in. I also suggest picking up a copy of _Silence_ , his collected lectures and writings.” 

Laila let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “Thank you.” 

He shrugged. “He’s one of my heroes. I could talk about it for hours... but I’d much rather let the work speak for itself.” 

Laila put her cigarette out on the side of the bench and nodded towards the door. “I think we’re supposed to go back inside.” The courtyard was rapidly emptying and the attendant shot them a death stare. 

Erik hummed as he exhaled, steepled his fingers under his chin, and gazed at her with glowing eyes. “They can wait.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Laila made a quick stop back at her room to wipe her face and stare herself down in the mirror. Her heart was pounding. In desperation she splashed cold water on her cheeks. FEAR—Face Everything And Recover, she repeated to herself. Face the fact that you are in a mental hospital. Face the fact that you are a drug addict. Face the fact that you are a human being with emotional and sexual needs. 

She buried her face in a towel as Patricia knocked at the door. “Hey roomie, music therapy’s starting in a few minutes. Do you know where the rec room is?” 

Laila looked at her for a long minute, as though she wasn’t sure what Patricia was talking about. “Ummm, I have no idea,” she responded. 

“I’ll show you where it is,” Patricia assured her with a smile. “I think Erik’s going to play the piano today.” 

“So I’ve heard.” Laila threw the towel down on the bed. “Let’s go.” 

The recreation room wasn’t too far from Melanie’s office, Laila noted with disdain. It had high ceilings and linoleum floors, just like the classroom they used for group. Her attention was immediately drawn to a locked cage at the far end of the room, which was crammed with therapeutic items: exercise balls, yoga mats, pool noodles, floor pillows, and a plain but serviceable acoustic guitar. On the adjacent wall sat an unadorned upright piano and a locked metal cabinet. 

The music therapist, looking decidedly casual in cargo shorts and a lime green t-shirt that said, “It’s not a wrong note, it’s JAZZ”, unlocked the cage and passed pillows around for the patients to sit on. Laila sat down towards the front of the group, which was loosely clustered around the piano. The therapist took the acoustic guitar and sat on the piano bench facing the room. She had short curly hair and a round cherubic face with light crinkle lines at the corners of her eyes. 

“Hello everyone,” she said brightly. “My name is Denise and I’m the music therapist here at Oak Haven. It’s very nice to have you all here. We’re in for something special today. I understand there’s a musician in the audience?” 

Every pair of eyes in the room flew to Erik, who was pacing like a caged tiger in the background. He stopped abruptly and stared back like they were all idiots. “I’m not the only musician here,” he countered. His gaze went straight to Laila. “Perhaps someone else would like to go first.” 

Fuck, thought Laila. She hadn’t anticipated being put on the spot. “I would like to play something,” she volunteered in a quiet voice. 

Denise smiled, and her eyes were kind. “What’s your name, dear?” 

“Laila. I’m a bassist and a guitarist. I went to Berklee School of Music.” 

“Wonderful.” Denise got up from the piano bench and gestured for Laila to come forward and sit. “Do you have a particular piece in mind?” 

Laila glanced at Erik as she settled on the bench facing the group. “I do.” 

“Then by all means,” nodded Denise. She handed Laila the guitar and sat on a folding chair to the side. 

Laila stroked the back of the neck gently with her thumb and gave the strings a first tentative strum. The guitar sounded better than she thought it would, and was almost perfectly in standard tuning. “Do you mind if I drop it down a half-step?” she asked. 

“Not at all,” Denise replied. 

It took about a minute to downtune with a practiced ear. Laila preferred tuning to E flat in the manner of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn, not only for the darker, more resonant bass tones, but for the looser feel of the strings, easier bends, and pull-offs with greater attack. It was also better suited to her contralto voice. 

“Alright guys,” she said, playing a few arpeggiated test chords. “This is a song called ‘Dream On’ by Depeche Mode, from their 2001 album _Exciter_.” She cleared her throat and launched into the bluesy opening riff after singing the first line. 

_“Can you feel a little love?_

_As your bony fingers close around me  
Long and spindly, death becomes me  
Heaven, can you see what I see? _

_Hey, you pale and sickly child  
You’re death and living reconciled  
Been walking home a crooked mile _

_Paying debt to karma  
You party for a living  
What you take won’t kill you  
But careful what you’re giving _

_Mmmmmm”_

She added a little slap strumming right before the second verse, and her spirit soared like a pure beacon into the sky. This was her medium, this was her art, she lived and breathed for this, and she would be damned before she let heroin take this away from her again. It had taken quite enough already. 

_“There’s no time for hesitating  
Pain is ready, pain is waiting  
Primed to do its educating _

_Unwanted, uninvited kin  
It creeps beneath your crawling skin  
It lives without, it lives within you _

_Feel the fever coming  
You’re shaking and twitching  
You can scratch all over  
But that won’t stop you itching _

_Can you feel a little love?  
Can you feel a little love? _

_Dream on, dream on_

_Mmmmmm  
Mmmmmm  
Mmmmmm”_

A little showing off as she vocalized, alternating flawlessly between riffs and more slap strumming on the bridge from second to third verse. 

_“Blame it on your karmic curse  
Oh shame upon the universe  
It knows its lines  
It’s well rehearsed _

_It sucked you in, it dragged you down  
To where there is no hallowed ground  
Where holiness is never found _

_Paying debt to karma  
You party for a living  
What you take won’t kill you  
But careful what you're giving _

_Can you feel a little love?  
Can you feel a little love? _

_Dream on, dream on_

_Can you feel a little love?  
Can you feel a little love? _

_Dream on, dream on  
Dream on, dream on  
Dream on, dream on”_

The room burst into applause and Laila flushed, her heart beating in her throat. She felt _high_. How long had it been since she played in front of an audience—months, maybe a year? What the hell have I been doing, she thought. She smiled from someplace deep within, and a rush of powerful energy swept through her. 

“That was beautiful, truly,” said Denise. “And what a lovely voice. Would you like to talk about the song and what it means?” 

“I think it’s pretty straight forward,” answered Laila. 

Denise turned to the room. “What does everyone else think?” 

Erik raised his hand. He was standing in the back, utterly still. “It’s about the difficulty of coping with the most basic of human emotions,” he said dreamily. “It’s about longing to feel alive as you destroy yourself in the process, the desperate need to receive love and affection, and the fear of being turned away. You expect to get hurt, so you act in a way that allows no other outcome. Feeling pain seems better than feeling nothing at all. Instead of following your true will, you are left at the mercy of karma and the hell you’ve brought upon yourself. The only question is… can you still feel enough love to keep the dream alive that maybe, one day, things will change?” 

The room was quiet and contemplative. “There is always hope,” Denise said. 

“ _Dum spiro, spero_ ,” Laila chimed in. “ _While I breathe, I hope._ You can thank Al Ward for that one.” She looked Erik straight in the eye. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes lingered on hers for a long moment. 

“Would you like to play your composition, Erik?” Denise asked. 

“I would,” he replied. Laila got off the bench, turned the guitar over to Denise, and took a seat on the floor. Someone handed her a pillow. Erik made his way to the piano, where he sat with the deep reverence of a priest about to perform the holy rite of transubstantiation. He took a great breath and cracked his knuckles over the keys. The room seemed to pulsate with energy, and Laila instinctively closed her eyes. 

The composition was broken into four distinct movements. It started with a dark, quirky, percussive sequence, deceptively simple at first, which quickly progressed into several complex polyrhythms that alternated and built upon each other in intensity. The disharmonic trills that kicked in on the lower end coupled with embellishment on the higher octaves, giving Laila chills. She pictured herself walking around on the dark streets, living in the shadows and hunting for drugs. 

The song stopped, rather abruptly, and shifted into the second movement with a high, haunting, oscillating melody, roiling back and forth like waves. A slight change in speed and progression, and the ascending and descending scales were punctuated by deep orchestral stabs, atonal and jarring to the senses. The music began to build upon itself steadily, angrily, with a sequence that mimicked clashing drums and the tolling of a bell. It’s an apocalyptic countdown, Laila thought, the countdown to dope sickness. A countermelody gushed in like the whirling wind, and Laila felt herself being funneled into a tornado spawned from the pit of junkie hell. At the brink of total despair, it ended. 

Several moments of silence followed. Bless you John Cage, Laila thought, wiping at her eyes. The room was motionless as a tomb. The third movement began slowly, tenderly, with a plunge and a low rush of soothing, ethereal tones, layered like the harmonic choirs of heaven. This went on and on for some time with subtle variations, the mellow bass gradually following to accentuate the central theme. The audience swayed in sweet, blissful surrender. Everything’s okay, thought Laila. A soft countermelody caused her eyelids to droop, and it trailed off gently into silence. 

The energy returned with a midtempo transition into movement four on a distinct note of hope, epic and atmospheric. Trumpeting angels, thought Laila, we’re saved after all. The bass kicked in, deep and full, thrumming like one gigantic heart. In her mind’s eye, Laila sat in the stone living room and watching clouds move over the night sky in an infinite dance. The music infused her with a sense of possibility, of curiosity, of openness and new beginnings, while a progression of echoing chords reflected each other into eternity. She saw stars winking in and out of existence. A little digression came in as the main melody faded out, markedly personal somehow, a whisper of truth and beauty. Was it her imagination, or did she hear herself there? 

She opened her eyes as the room exploded with thunderous applause. An additional crowd of onlookers were sandwiched in the doorway and spilling into the room, Dr. Reed among them. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Denise looked especially shaken, holding her hand to her chest. “Well,” she breathed tremulously after the clapping petered out. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like that in all my years of teaching. You have a rare gift, Erik.” 

Erik was still sitting with his eyes closed. He hadn’t opened them for the entirety of the last movement. Slowly, he turned to Denise and bowed his head. “Thank you.” 

“You know,” said Denise, “Ray Charles serenaded the wards of McLean Hospital when he underwent addiction treatment in 1964. People talked about it for years; it was legendary.” She smiled at him. “A moment not unlike this one, I suspect.” 

“I appreciate that,” Erik replied. The door crowd gradually began to disperse. 

“I hope it won’t be too much to ask... but would you like to play something else?” 

Erik thought about it for several seconds. “I have something in mind,” he admitted, “but I’ll only play it if Laila sings.” 

Laila was shocked out of her trance. “What?” 

He glanced down at her from the bench with a small smirk, his eyes alight. “You said you were a Lou Reed girl. I can’t imagine you’d say no.” 

This is the second time he’s put me on the spot, Laila agonized. He’s lucky he’s so talented because otherwise I’d kill him. “Lou Reed,” she repeated with a sigh. “No... I don’t suppose I would.” 

He gestured with his head towards the piano bench and scooted over to make some room. “Come up here.” In a daze, as though her legs would not obey her, Laila took a seat on the bench facing the room. Their shoulders were just barely touching. “I’ll join you on the chorus,” he told her in a low voice, “just take your time and start when you’re ready.” He launched into a tune which Laila immediately identified as Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”. Here goes nothing, yet again, she thought, and sang. His voice coming in on the chorus made chills run through her. 

_“Just a perfect day  
Drink sangria in the park  
And then later  
When it gets dark, we go home _

_Just a perfect day  
Feed animals in the zoo  
Then later  
A movie, too, and then home _

_Oh, it’s such a perfect day  
I’m glad I spent it with you  
Oh, such a perfect day  
You just keep me hanging on  
You just keep me hanging on _

_Just a perfect day  
Problems all left alone  
Weekenders on our own  
It’s such fun _

_Just a perfect day  
You made me forget myself  
I thought I was  
Someone else, someone good _

_Oh, it’s such a perfect day  
I’m glad I spent it with you  
Oh, such a perfect day  
You just keep me hanging on  
You just keep me hanging on”_

The music built up to a frantic crescendo, and Erik added a little extra flourish as he coasted into the bridge and effortlessly broke it down. As he sang the final verse with her, he looked up from the keys and straight into her soul. 

_“You’re going to reap just what you sow  
You’re going to reap just what you sow  
You’re going to reap just what you sow  
You’re going to reap just what you sow”_

As they maintained eye contact throughout the trills and digressions of the ending sequence, Laila felt the boundaries between them vanish; warmth and white light pulsed and flowed through her. _God, he’s beautiful_ , she thought. Deep in the core of her being there was something that resonated with him and fused into something far greater, a holy spirit that rippled through her like a shot of ecstasy. 

The song was fully over, and they were still lost in each other. Laila broke into a breathless smile, and the room applauded. 

“Holy crap,” cried Stacy. She was fanning herself. 

“Perhaps next week,” said Denise, “you two can teach class.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Author’s note:  
I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit to the following tracks for inspiring what became Erik’s original composition in this chapter: 

Aphex Twin, “Prep Gwarek 36”  
Depeche Mode, “Pimpf”  
Aphex Twin, “#3” (from Selected Ambient Works Volume 2)  
Boards of Canada, “New Seeds”


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

Opening tracks:  
Au Revoir Simone, “Somebody Who”, Mike Doughty, “I’m Still Drinking in My Dreams”, The Beta Band, “Dry the Rain”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The remainder of Thursday afternoon passed by in a blur. Laila stayed long after music therapy was over under the pretense of re-tuning the guitar, but wound up playing snippets of half-written songs and chatting amiably with Denise, an act that struck her as refreshingly normal. Erik had disappeared shortly after the last round of applause was over, but the energy from their duet still lingered in the air, as though it had changed the very fabric of space-time. Laila was uncomfortably aware of it. 

As Denise closed up shop, locking the guitar in the equipment cage and turning off the lights, Laila watched Stacy approach from the other end of the hallway. She felt herself immediately become tense. “I know you don’t wanna hear it,” Stacy proclaimed, noting Laila’s apprehension, “so I’m only gonna say it once: that was one of the hottest things I’ve ever witnessed. You guys are totally gonna bang.”

Laila searched her pockets for projectile weapons and uncovered a lone single-serving peanut butter. She chucked it at Stacy indiscriminately; it hit her squarely in the cheek and she emitted a high-pitched squeal. “I don’t know where I’d be without your excessive commentary on my sex life,” Laila told her.

Stacy rubbed the side of her face. “You even sound like him,” she said with a smirk. “I just hope you invite me to the wedding.” She shielded herself with her arms in preparation for the inevitable battering that followed.

True to form, Erik had vanished like a ghost. He was not on line for dinner in the cafeteria, nor was he waiting for medication at the nurses’ station. Don’t be a stalker, Laila, she scolded herself as she hauled on a cigarette, alone on the courtyard bench after returning from dinner. He’s entitled to go do... whatever he does. The evening air was particularly fragrant with balsam, and she took a deep breath of calm.

On the way back inside for the nightly twelve-step meeting, Laila found Erik sitting frozen like a cardboard cutout in the common room. He appeared disheveled, draped in the black velour robe with hair sticking up in every direction. “Hi,” she said, walking over to him. “What the hell happened to you?”

Erik grew sheepish. “I had to crash,” he said after a moment. “They just woke me up. This place has wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule, which is admittedly… uh, unorthodox.” He scratched the back of his head.

“You didn’t sleep last night?” Laila asked.

He shrugged, indifferent. “I only need two or three hours a night, but the loss of my Klonopin has complicated matters.”

Laila couldn’t imagine a life with so little sleep. “Wow. How do you do that?”

“Long ago, I made the executive decision that sleeping is a waste of time. It wasn’t just to find more time to make music; I thought sleeping in general was a bit of a con. I was always able to get away with four hours a night, but with practice I whittled it down to two. You get used to it, you know. Most of my creative ideas come at night. I hate the daytime. I hate... people.”

“Have you been sleeping at all?” She was genuinely concerned.

“Barely.”

“What do you do all night?”

He shot her a mischievous look. “Do you really wanna know?” he teased. He grabbed a pack of playing cards from the side table and tossed it to her with a quick flick of the wrist. Laila caught it and stared down at the deck in her hands. “I write music and I play _fucking Solitaire_ ,” he declared bitterly.

She was incredulous. “You sit here all night, and play Solitaire?” The abject misery in his deadpan stare said everything, and she burst into giggles.

“Ms. Ward, Mr. Dupuis,” called a tired nurse from behind the counter, “the twelve-step meeting is starting.”

Laila handed Erik the pack of cards. “I guess you better hold onto these,” she said with a gleam in her eye, “lest you resort to other nighttime diversions.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The twelve-step meeting was markedly subdued. The main speaker had a soothing, mellow British accent, and Laila drifted into vivid daydreams of life beyond detox. I wonder if I’ll ever get to see _him_ outside of this place, she thought. It was hard to picture Erik living like any other human being—going to the grocery store, putting gas in his car, shopping for clothes. He lives in a basement, she remembered. Maybe he’s one of those people that never goes outside. She glanced over, only to discover him peering back at her. Neither of them looked away. Laila recalled an apt, oft-paraphrased line from Charles Bukowski: _Eyes. Those damn eyes fucked me forever._

When the meeting adjourned Laila took off down the hallway, rapidly overheating. I need a cigarette, she panicked. Luckily the attendant was already stationed by the door to the courtyard with the tupperware bin of smokes and a lighter. She catapulted outside like a pinball and went straight for the Victorian bench, extending her arms to embrace the cool night. I’m unraveling, she thought. She took a long drag on her cigarette and buried her face in her scarred forearms.

She didn’t budge, even as the other patients make their way into the courtyard and her cigarette went cold. Several minutes passed by hazily without definition, before the gentle rustling of leaves announced a presence on the bench beside her. “Your cigarette is out,” came a soft voice. Laila didn’t respond. She heard the unmistakable flick of a lighter. Then, “We never finished our conversation about the Great Work.”

She pulled hard on her reignited cigarette, savoring the crackle, before she gazed at Erik. His mask loomed like a beacon in the lunar light. “I don’t suppose we did.”

He looked straight up at the sky. “The Great Work is the driving force behind every creative act humanity has ever undertaken. It is an inner process that ultimately affects what we perceive as reality, the external world. It is both individual and universal. Alchemists described it as the refining of lead into gold, but it’s much more than a physical event. It is the divine inheritance, the creative birthright of mankind. Artists and creators are alchemists by nature; we take the raw dross of our lives and transmute it into something beautiful. We create the way God creates, and become more like Him. All creations are real, you know, in the eternal sense of the word. A great artist makes something pure that lasts forever, not like this temporary shell of a world.”

Laila took a deep breath. She had not expected spiritual and philosophical discourse, let alone the answer to a childhood mystery. Like an unknown puzzle piece, it whirred and locked into place. “This world may be a shell,” she said, her eyes trailing over him, “but beauty exists everywhere if you know where to look.” 

Erik got the message. He flushed red to the tips of his ears and let out a nervous laugh. “I, um, I haven’t met anyone like you in a long time.”

“Likewise.”

He kicked at some dry leaves on the ground. “You should know, I’m not a good person. I’ve done a lot of fucked up shit.” He glanced at her warily. “A lot.”

“That makes two of us,” she replied, nonplussed. “But I would never begrudge anyone what they felt they had to do to survive.”

“Touché,” he conceded. An extended lull followed, which Laila dared not break; she could feel him silently warring with himself. “I’m not used to letting people get close to me,” he admitted. “Most people prefer it that way.”

She flicked the column of ash off her cigarette. “I’m not most people.”

He laughed again, sounding slightly unhinged, and combed pale fingers through his wild hair. “Tell me about it.”

Laila backed off a little. An unruly burst of wind scattered her hair across her face, and she tucked it behind her ear. “You’re not the only one with walls,” she said, crossing her legs. “That hippie jam band I mentioned? They called me the ice queen because of the way I constantly shot guys down.” There was something secure about being remote and untouchable amidst the free-for-all that encompassed life on tour. After nine months on the road, she had only taken one guy back to the tour bus, a metalhead who was dragged to the show unwillingly by some friends.

“What did you do?”

Her dark eyes glittered. “I made myself an ice tiara.”

“I presume that’s not just a metaphor.”

She grinned. “Best fifteen bucks I ever spent. While everyone else was nursing hangovers, I went thrift shopping. I spray-painted it blue and silver, and this hippie girl helped me wire-wrap it with a bunch of quartz crystals. Wore it the entire tour.”

Erik was placated by this confession. “I would have liked to see that,” he commented with genuine fondness. He looked her up and down. “For what it’s worth, you don’t strike me as a cold person, but I might not be the best judge. I’ve always been a curmudgeon with cold hands.”

It was impossible to resist such an opening. She reached over and touched the back of his hand where it lay on the bench, the warm pads of her fingertips brushing sinewy tendons. “You don’t feel cold to me,” she murmured. Electricity ran all the way up her arm and down her spine, and set a fire ablaze in his eyes.

“Hello guys,” came an extremely irritated voice. “SMOKE BREAK IS OVER.”

Their hands jettisoned apart, but the heat remained. I’m done for, thought Laila as they walked side-by-side into the unit. Her face was burning with a mixture of glee and guilt. It seemed like every single person, patient and nurse alike, was staring. From the corner of her eye she saw Stacy mouth a scream of encouragement.

At the entrance to the back hallway, where the corridor split into male and female sides, Erik flashed her a small, triumphant smile, and a heady rush infused her soul. “Good night, _isdrottning_ ,” he intoned with a slight bow of the head.

“Good night, Erik,” she whispered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The night and morning that followed were brutal. Laila awoke at 4am in a pool of toxic sweat, startled into consciousness by the first of many drug-themed dreams to come. The context was unclear, but she remembered the crack of the whip, sliding the silver needle into her arm, watching the blood trickle down in an unbroken line into the dark soil. A large black bird flapped its wings and pecked at the ground near her bare feet. The image unsettled her, and she tossed and turned for the next two hours. When it came time for vital signs, Laila decided to stay out of bed. She took the longest, hottest shower she could, scouring her aching back muscles, and tried to frame the motion of hitting the tap every thirty seconds as a Zen act. 

The day was shaping up to be uncharacteristically hot, so she put on denim shorts that she had cropped herself and a deconstructed tee from Tool’s 2001 tour with the collar and sleeves cut off. Let’s see what Erik has to say about this one, she thought, separating sections of her wet hair and pulling it into a loose French braid. Her everyday wardrobe was mostly band and concert tees, the majority of which were in storage. She nabbed the first cup of coffee in the common room and waited for the attendant to let the morning smokers outside.

“Almost outta Pall Malls,” the attendant informed her with an unreadable expression. Nevertheless, he handed her a cigarette.

Laila was slightly off-put by his tone. “They’re not mine,” she replied, pulling her purple sunglasses down over her eyes and hightailing it to the courtyard. The sky was overcast and the humidity in the air was thick and stifling. Laila spent only a few minutes outside before the heat started to get to her.

“Hey,” Stacy said, meandering over to the bench with a freshly lit Marlboro. Her impeccably lined mouth left a perfectly stamped red lip print on the end. “I love your braid, but it’s coming undone in the back. You want me to fix it?”

“Sure.”

“How about a Dutch braid? That’ll look killer with your undercut.” Stacy pulled a fuchsia-colored comb out of her pocket and dismantled Laila’s earlier handiwork with ease. “So,” she said casually as her nimble fingers went to work reconstructing the braid, “tell me what happened last night.”

“Um, I touched him.”

Stacy’s expression remained neutral. “Where?”

“His _hand_.” Laila rolled her eyes. “God, you’re incorrigible.”

“Hah, I’m sorry, but you never know. People get up to some pretty freaky things in rehab.” Stacy paused to take a long drag on her cigarette.

“I wouldn’t know, really.”

“Stick around and you might find out. Just like, be smart about it. They’re gonna be watching you two like a hawk.”

“Why should anyone care what we do?” Laila asked. “We’re adults.”

“Oh sweetheart, we’re _addicts_. We’re all emotionally stunted adolescents up here.” Stacy tapped the side of her temple. She made it to the bottom of the braid and tied it off with an elastic. “The no-fraternization rule is pretty universal, but people break it all the time.” She tweaked a few pieces of hair with a look of satisfaction.

“Have you?”

“I hooked up with someone down in Florida. Nothing like Erik—he wasn’t, like, talented or mysterious, or even hot. He was just some dumb guy I fucked because we were both bored and lonely and needed to feel something.”

That didn’t sound especially appealing to Laila. “Did you regret it?”

Stacy shrugged. “Not really. I was mourning the end of my relationship and I wanted to feel desired again.”

Laila considered this carefully. “I haven’t been with anyone since my ex,” she confessed. “It’s hard to believe anyone could want me the way I am now.”

Stacy gave her a small hug, flooding Laila with an aura of love and coconut shampoo. “We’re all damaged goods. Trust me, you’re beautiful.” She gave her hair a gentle pull. “And that braid looks _so dope_.”

Laila reached up and felt her hair. “Thank you,” she said, awash with gratitude.

“Anytime.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Erik appeared right as the cafeteria-goers set off for breakfast and sprinted to catch up with relative ease. He made it to the tail of the line just as it disappeared around the corner. Laila, who was towards the front of the queue, didn’t bump into him until their paths crossed at the coffee station. 

“Good morning,” he said, setting his tray besides hers on the counter. He ripped open a sugar packet and stirred it into his beverage. “I’ve got something for you.” 

“Oh?” Laila poured a little too much milk into her coffee and took a shaky slurp off the top so it didn’t spill. It was still too hot and burned going down her throat.

Erik held the coffee stirrer between his teeth as he fished a black Marble notebook from where it was securely tucked between his armpit and his torso. “I believe this is yours,” he said, holding it out to her.

Laila instantly recognized the elaborate doodle on the cover as her own and grabbed it, flipping through the pages. “My journal! Where did you find it?”

“The social workers’ office,” replied Erik. “Don’t worry, I didn’t read anything.”

“I’m not worried,” she assured him. “Anything you read you read at your own risk. How’d you get in?” They carried their trays over to the long dining table and took seats across from one another.

Erik looked smug. “I picked the lock. It’s easy. All you really need is a paperclip...” He fell silent as the lunch attendant floated by, hovering with a clipboard and a pen. He gave Laila and Erik a pointed look as he passed.

Laila waited until the attendant was well out of earshot before responding. “What the hell was that?” she whispered conspiratorially.

Erik took a leisurely sip of coffee. He didn’t seem surprised. “They’re watching us.”

The notion of having her personal interactions policed did not sit well with Laila, who harbored an innate distrust of authority. “Fuck them,” she declared, a little loudly.

“Just ignore it,” he told her. “They can’t do anything. We aren’t breaking any protocols.”

She was no less incensed; she had spent much of her life rebelling on principle alone. “What if we wanted to break protocol?”

Erik beamed at her from across the table. “It’s hardly a question of _if_ ,” he remarked, and she smiled at him.

A tray slammed down on the table next to Laila, startling them both out of the moment. “Hey kids,” Stacy announced, taking a loud sip of coffee. “What’d I miss?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The rain began to fall steadily as the group made their way back to the unit. Morning meds and a second smoke break followed, with the smokers miserably clustered around the door trying to shield their cigarettes from torrents of water and wind. Laila sat out the wet cigarette in favor of crashing on the couch with her notebook and a pencil, sketching furiously. She was inspired by the storm and slightly buzzed from the Suboxone, amongst other things. Listening to the rain was a soothing necessity; it was beginning to feel like she was strapped to a speedy roller coaster. 

Goals group with Otto was a boisterous affair due to the antics of a newly admitted patient named Dom, who threw his flat brim hat on the floor and refused to sit still. Two well-muscled orderlies arrived like clockwork to escort him out of the classroom. “That dude’s definitely tweaking,” Stacy whispered in Laila’s ear. His angry wail echoed down the hallway, and Otto closed the door. The patients tended to self-segregate by drug of choice into camps that frequently made derogatory comments about each other. Laila observed early on that junkies weren’t too high up in the hierarchy of substance abusers, and she was well aware of the company she kept. She glanced at Erik, who remained a blank slate to the chaos unfolding around him.

When the recitation of goals resumed and made its way to her, Laila hit a wall. “I’m not sure what my goals are for today,” she said, after introducing herself for what seemed like the millionth time.

Otto wasn’t having it. “Ms. Ward, you can do better than that.” He waited for a response that never came. “I heard through the grapevine that you’re a singer.”

“I’m a musician, not a singer,” she corrected.

“And have you considered the potential impact of your career on your sobriety?” His teeth gleamed unnaturally white.

Laila stared at him, thrown off by this line of questioning. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... long, late hours, working in an environment where alcohol is served and other substances are readily available, if not freely offered?” He spread his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Sounds like a pretty rough gig for someone in recovery.”

Across the room, Erik cleared his throat. “There’s a lot more to the music industry than bars and nightclubs,” he said. “Your assumption is flawed. She could work as a session musician, or find employment in a music school or church. There’s plenty of opportunities for people with talent and the right connections.”

“I didn’t ask you, Mr. Dupuis,” Otto told him. He stayed focused on Laila.

“If you go the church route you might have to make a few concessions,” Erik added, directing the statement to Laila. “You’d have to forgo the sacramental wine.”

Otto glared at him over the top of his glasses. “Need I remind you, Mr. Dupuis, that despite your grasp on the industry, you still wound up here for addiction treatment.” 

“I was clean for seven years,” Erik snapped. “My relapse had nothing to do with the music industry, and everything to do with my ex-girlfriend cheating on me.”

Laila decided to interrupt the pissing contest. “I understand what you’re saying,” she said to Otto, trying to be diplomatic. “It’s not an easy environment to work in. A lot of smaller venues base payout on a percentage of bar sales, and even then, only after a certain minimum has been reached. Sponsorships with alcohol companies are everywhere. It’s impossible to avoid it entirely... but this is my life. I chose it, and I would choose it again without regret.”

“You have to work on developing healthy coping mechanisms,” Otto informed her. “You need an action plan for when you get triggered, and believe me, it will happen—if not in your professional life, then in your personal one.”

Laila nodded, a little spooked. “Well, I guess I have my goal for today.”

Otto seemed satisfied by her response, and she was relieved when the focus moved on to the rest of the group. She half-anticipated another battle of wills when the circle reached Erik, but he appeared calm. “I have a number of business matters to attend to today,” he said. “My lead engineer Jules thought I was coming back to work yesterday, so I have to tell him plans have changed. We’ve got sessions booked back-to-back now that Labor Day’s over, so there’s a lot to do.” He sighed. “My friend also insists on visiting me tonight, which I advised against, but I don’t think he’s going to listen, because he never listens.”

“How does this affect your recovery, Mr. Dupuis?” Otto asked.

“Working is what keeps me going,” Erik said. “It’s better for me to throw myself into a project—multiple projects, ideally—than sit around and think.”

“And what will you do when there are no more projects to attend to?”

“There’s always another project,” Erik replied. “I’ve made sure of that.”

“Hmmm,” Otto mused, tapping his chin. “I hope you realize that eventually you are going to have to sit down and face what happened to you.”

It was like someone had flipped a switch. “Which part?” Erik scoffed, with growing malice in his voice. “The years overseas, when I first encountered heroin in the Middle East? I was there, you know, when we invaded Afghanistan after 9/11. I saw what happened to the people, I watched the poppy fields burn and run red with blood. It was a despicable failure on every front; Afghanistan single-handedly accounts for 90% of the world’s opium production to this day. Perhaps you’re referring to the time I nearly died smuggling myself out of the country in a shipping container.”

“Mr. Dupuis—”

“Of course, the greatest affront of all,” Erik continued, “was when I was born with this _face_ —or _lack thereof_.” Laila’s heart leaped into her throat; for a split second she was sure he was going to take off the mask.

“You have seen a lot, Erik,” Otto said, gently but firmly, “which is why I encourage you to talk to someone about it.”

Erik didn’t say anything else. He sat back in his chair, still as a statue, and stared stonily at the floor. Laila felt like she was going to burst into tears on his behalf. All the petty slights and perceived failures she had endured throughout life paled in comparison to the amount of suffering this man had witnessed. Brimming with nerves, she ripped a hangnail off her thumb with her teeth and cursed as the wound smarted and blood welled in the corner of her nail.

When the end of group came, Erik remained seated as the other patients left. His eyes hadn’t left the floor. Stacy poked Laila and motioned towards the door. “Go on without me,” Laila said softly. “I’ll just be a minute.”

The room was empty, except for the two of them. Laila walked over to Erik and stood before him like a silent petitioner. About a minute passed before he looked up at her. “Why are you still here?” he whispered in a broken voice.

She swallowed hard, trying to let the right words form in her mouth. When they didn’t come, she took a single step towards him. “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly. She took another step forward, and then the dam broke; she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. The contact was a complete shock to both their systems, and Laila felt him tense before he relaxed into it. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the hot tears roll down her face and onto his shirt, which smelled faintly like sandalwood. When his long arms finally enveloped her and stroked the small of her back, she trembled outright. It was hard to tell who was clinging to who, and it didn’t matter.

A knock came at the door. “Ms. Ward,” said the knocker. It was Otto. “Best be on your way now. Give Erik some space.”

She sniffled and extracted herself from his arms in a daze. “Sorry about that,” she blurted.

Erik reached up and wiped a stubborn tear from her cheek. “It’s okay,” he said. He had not shed a single tear, but they were there glistening in his eyes. “Thank you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The rain was still coming down hard, and Laila felt like she was going to explode. She bummed a Marlboro from Stacy and they huddled together by the courtyard door, trying to smoke as rapidly as possible before the next group. Laila’s flannel shirt now doubled as shelter, and quickly became soaked. “Would it kill this place to invest in some umbrellas?” she grumbled to Stacy, who relit her cigarette for the third time. 

“They want us to suffer,” replied Stacy matter-of-factly. “It’s part of the addict’s penance for crimes against society.”

“I think we’ve all suffered enough,” Laila said. She gazed around at all the long, drawn faces. “Look at us. We’re like a bunch of sad, wet dogs left out in the rain.”

Stacy put her cigarette out on the guard railing. “The only difference is, wet dogs smell better.”

“And people actually want to adopt dogs,” added Laila. She stubbed out her cigarette and deposited the butt in the smoking receptacle.

“Speaking of dogs,” said Stacy as they walked back inside, “I forgot to tell you, Mike’s appeal didn’t go through.” Mike was the boyfriend—ex-boyfriend?—in prison.

“Ugh, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Stacy declared flatly. “He’s a piece of shit.”

Laila made a quick pit stop by her room to ensure her braid was still intact after exposure to the elements. It was, but her eyeliner was a different story. She dabbed at the dark circles under her eyes with a tissue, smirking at her resemblance to a raccoon. It seemed like the more she tried to fix her appearance, the worse she looked. The last thing on earth she wanted to do was go sit in another group, but an attendant appeared at the door to bid her on her way. Her sneakers squeaked as she trudged down the hallway back to the classroom.

The ceiling fans did little besides circulate the hot air around the room, and Laila was bummed when she noticed Erik was no longer there. She was low-key concerned about his mental state, and shook her foot to dispel nervous energy. Here I am, she thought, worrying about this guy I barely know, whose face I’ve never seen. It was a strange thing, this tenuous, fierce intimacy shared between addicts, but the connection between them occurred on an entirely different level. Laila could count on one hand the number of people with whom she’d experienced such rapid closeness. None of them were a silken-voiced, black-clad phantom who good-naturedly derided her fashion choices, spouted experimental music theory and esoterica, and produced the most ethereal tones she’d ever heard. She came to a sudden conclusion: she didn’t care what his face looked like, not when she was so enthralled by the layers he seemed to be shedding before her in some kind of golden metamorphosis. He could look dead under there and I would still love him, she decided.

Then she realized what she had just said, and balked at herself.

“Hi everyone,” said the therapist who came into the classroom carrying an expensive-looking tan leather tote bag full of books, folders, and papers. She was a willowy middle-aged woman of regal composure and bearing with shoulder-length blonde hair. “My name is Janet, and I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. The group we’re doing today involves an issue I see frequently in my practice with couples and families, especially those who struggle with addiction. It’s called co-dependency. Does anyone know what that means?”

Stacy raised her hand. Laila could tell by the look in her eye that she was well-acquainted with the topic. “It’s a toxic relationship where people enable each other.”

“Yes,” said Janet. “Enabling is definitely part of the group of behaviors that accompany codependency. Does everyone know what enabling is?” Laila was, sadly, at a loss.

“It’s making excuses for people,” Stacy replied. “Keeping their dirty secrets for them so they can keep using, bailing them out of trouble, giving them money, so they never have to be accountable for their own actions.”

“I like that word, _accountable_ ,” the therapist said. “You’re very right—?”

“Stacy.”

“Stacy,” continued Janet. “Now, an important thing to remember is that codependency is a learned behavior. It can be passed down from generation to generation, and it often is, since we typically model our own behavior on that of our parents. It became popular as an idea about ten years ago, when they studied interpersonal relationships in families of alcoholics. Nowadays the term is a little more broadly applicable. It can be used to describe any person in a dysfunctional, one-sided relationship, where one individual relies on the other for all of their emotional and self-esteem needs. Addiction is often, but not always part of the picture.”

The discussion continued, covering the concept of dysfunctional families and the characteristics of codependent individuals. Laila filled out the questionnaire on the handout and was disheartened to note she checked “yes” for 50% of the answers. She knew her previous relationship with Raphael would have qualified as dysfunctional, and grew bitter as she relived memories of being manipulated, put down, guilt-tripped, and lied to. Raphael was the son of a prodigious tech tyrant and the sole beneficiary of a sizable trust fund. The last time she saw him he had stiffed her for $200 before careening off on a cross-country trip back to the west coast, sizing her up with pinned pupils and narrow, mocking eyes as she curled into a ball on her sagging leather couch, shivering from withdrawal. He didn’t care about her—he had never cared about her. To him, people were little more than pawns on a chessboard.

“Well, I guess I’m codependent,” she remarked glumly to Stacy after the group was finished.

“Aren’t we all,” said Stacy.

To the relief of many, the summer storm had passed, and the courtyard was once again free-range territory for the antsy smokers. Laila was about to ask Stacy if she could bum another cigarette when she saw Erik shuffle into the common room. She nodded at him, and he gravitated over. “Hey,” she said hesitantly. “You missed a good group.”

“Yeah, I, uh, had to sit that one out,” he replied. He seemed a little shaky, but mostly recovered from the earlier episode. “What was it about?”

She made a face. “Codependency.”

“ _Oh_ ,” said Erik with consummate disgust. “I could write you a book on the topic.”

Laila flagged Stacy down by grabbing her sleeve and holding on for dear life. “Stacy,” she hissed, trying not to give away her tremendous anxiety, “I need a cigarette.”

Stacy smiled warmly at both of them, and Laila silently thanked God for her friendship. “You can have two,” Stacy told her, and held out an expectant palm to the attendant with the bin. “Giles, I need two cigarettes for my very good, sweet friend here.”

The smokes were now in Laila’s hand, and Erik nudged her towards the door. “Up for another game of ping pong?” he asked.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun was peeking out from behind the clouds by the time Laila and Erik negotiated with the attendant for the ping pong paddles and ball. Laila tied her flannel around her waist and took a long determined breath. The rain had cooled things off significantly, but it was still muggy, and she felt sticky and covered in sweat. Erik pushed up the short sleeves of his black t-shirt, and she tried not to stare at the ornate black scorpion tattoo curled around his bicep. They lobbed the ball back and forth with rhythmic ease for about a minute without speaking. 

“Her name was Christine,” Erik said, breaking the silence. “My ex-girlfriend.”

Laila swallowed. “Tell me about her.”

“She was a Tisch student, a minor project one of my engineers took on basically as charity; Jules has a lot of feelers in the indie scene. Christine’s a singer, a soprano. She played her father’s old violin over beats in Ableton Live when I first met her. I wound up taking her on myself, as a voice and violin student. We were together for about a year before everything went to shit.”

Laila was listening so intently she nearly missed the ball. “What happened?”

“While her violin skills are mediocre at best, Christine is a really talented vocalist; she could have sang opera professionally if she wanted. Lord knows Madeleine—that’s my mom—tried to get her to do it. Anyway, she started to get a lot of attention after we dropped her first EP, and let’s just say she did really well for herself.” He paused here, as if dreading the next part. “She ran into her old childhood boyfriend on a trip out to LA, and we broke up six months later. She lives out there now, with him. Apparently it was one of those whirlwind affairs that only people in California have. They just got married. She’s going to be a pop star, the next Lady Gaga.”

“That’s rough.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he fumed. “She cheated on me for months without having the decency to break it off, after everything I did for her. For a while I thought I was going crazy, having paranoid delusions, but it was just her lying and sneaking around behind my back. I eventually flew out to Cali and confronted her about it... it wasn’t pretty. I relapsed shortly afterwards.” He slammed the ping pong ball so hard it flew past Laila and landed in a murky puddle nearly all the way to the courtyard door.

Laila retrieved the ball and shook it off before sending it back his way. “There’s no excuse for shitty behavior like that,” she said.

“But there is,” he answered forlornly. “I was a shitty boyfriend.”

“According to who?”

“Her. I was too controlling, or at least that’s what she told me. Christine has some, uh, serious family issues that affected her upbringing a lot.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, she was raised in a hippie Jesus cult.”

Laila raised an eyebrow. “That’ll do it,” she said, for lack of a better response.

“I thought we were going to be together forever,” he admitted. “She was the first person who ever made me feel normal. I had these visions of us getting married, walking in Prospect Park on Sundays, going to the Brooklyn Museum—this fantasy life where we were just like every other couple, but we were looking for totally different things in the end. I wanted a co-collaborator, someone I could really blaze a path with. She decided to play it safe and pander to the lowest common denominator.”

“What’s the other guy like?”

Erik gave her a look so menacing that she shivered. “Please don’t ask.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I almost killed him with my bare hands,” he said through gritted teeth. “It was not my proudest moment.”

Laila wasn’t sure how much of this could be chalked up to hyperbole, but it was easy to picture Erik’s skeletal fingers wrapped around somebody’s throat. There was an edge to everything he did that was hypnotic, like the coiling dance of a predator before it strikes. “Well, it sounds like you really loved her,” she said after a moment. “That’s more than I can say for my ex, Raphael. He’s the one who got me hooked on opiates. Typical party promoter with daddy issues and a trust fund. He got run out of town for ripping a bunch of people off. He stole from me, too.”

“So, a scumbag of the lowest possible order,” supplemented Erik.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I knew he was trouble, everybody told me, but I loved him anyway. It’s funny how that works.”

“I know.” His eyes were empathetic.

“I left him before he could leave me,” Laila confessed. “That’s the way it goes. Everybody always leaves in the end, so I leave first. All I ever wanted was someone who cared enough to chase after me.” She sighed and shook it off. “Sometimes I think we meet people like that for a reason, people who push us, test us and hurt us, so that later on, when we meet the right ones, we can really appreciate them.”

He tilted his head and studied her thoughtfully. “Until very recently, I might have disagreed with you.” 

“What about now?” she asked.

Erik caught the ping pong ball with his left hand. He held it up to the light between his thumb and forefinger before enveloping it in his fist. With a small wave of his hand, he made it disappear, and held out his empty palm to her. The attendant had given the signal that smoke break was over, and the other patients were filing back inside. “Maybe the universe is unfolding as it should,” he said.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

“Say hello to the rug’s topography  
It holds quite a lot of interest with your face down on it”  
\- Failure

Opening tracks:  
Smashing Pumpkins, “Eye”, Failure, “The Nurse Who Loved Me”, Kite, “Dance Again”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lunch in the cafeteria was a mild disappointment, with burnt-up crusty disks intended to pass for personal pan pizza, but Laila was unaffected, caught up in the inner workings of her mind. She occupied herself with making a quick profile sketch of Stacy in her journal while Stacy argued with Craig, a scruffy blue-collar guy in his late twenties. Laila really wanted to draw Erik, but she was hesitant to ask permission. He sat opposite her in companionable silence, reading a dog-eared copy of Marcus Aurelius’s _Meditations_ and sparing an occasional glance over the top. They were only allowed recovery-oriented reading materials in detox, but the nurses let it slide. 

The surrounding conversation veered into reminiscing about drug use, full of junkie one-upmanship and ambiguous references to shady street corners and the crews running them. Laila chose to filter most of it out. She didn’t want to know what areas had the best dope or which pharmacies let you buy rigs without a prescription. She and Erik exchanged a look of mutual revulsion when Craig boasted he was only in detox because he was broke, and planned on picking up as soon as his paycheck went through. She rolled her eyes and watched the corners of Erik’s mouth upturn slightly. Prolonged eye contact made the air between them feel warm.

“Hey Erik,” she said, immersed in the dual spotlights of his gaze, “would you hate it if I drew you?”

He was clearly uncomfortable with the idea and blinked several times before looking away. “Not necessarily.”

“I’ll give it to you when I’m finished,” she offered.

He sighed wearily. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I won’t want it.”

“If you don’t like it, then I’ll keep it,” she retorted, obviously insulted. She flipped her notebook to a blank page and began a fresh outline.

Erik was humored by this display of childishness. “ _Lai-la_ ,” he called in a sing-song voice. She continued to ignore him, so he reached across the table and drummed a beat along the top edge of her notebook. “Laila,” he repeated gently, “there’s no need to be butt-hurt. I just don’t need reminders of what I look like.”

Laila stared at his spindly fingers. “I get it,” she said simply. “Maybe you need to see things from a different perspective. What you see isn’t the same as what I see.”

“Sweetheart, you haven’t seen anything yet,” he informed her darkly.

“What I see,” she replied with a note of finality, “has nothing to do with my eyes.”

The discussion stopped right there. Erik returned to Marcus Aurelius, and Laila continued sketching until lunch was over and they marched back to the unit, where he went off to beg use of the phone at the nurses’ station. There was another smoke break followed by a long stretch of free time, since there was no therapeutic group scheduled for the afternoon. Laila took advantage of the opportunity to coax an attendant into slipping her a few sheets of blank legal-sized paper, for therapeutic purposes. She sprawled across her bed with a couple sharpened pencils and her copy of the Blue Book as a surface, on a mission to express the inexpressible, mulling over the sharp angles that defined the planes of his masked face. It didn’t take long for the lack of sleep to catch up to her, and she nodded off for a few minutes before burying her face in the crook of her arm and passing out.

“Laila...” came a soft voice. “Laila, it’s Patricia.”

“Mmmmph,” she answered groggily. The room was filled with hazy gray light.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Patricia said, “but I was instructed to tell you there’s a Monopoly game starting in the common room.”

“Oh.” Laila slowly came to and propped herself up on the bed. Every muscle in her body hurt. She sniffled, straightened out her shirt, and cleared her throat. “Hey, do we have any tissues?”

Patricia handed Laila the box from her bedside table. “Thank you,” Laila croaked. She blew her nose several times. “Ugh.”

“Allergies?” asked Patricia.

Laila sighed and shook her head. Her nostrils was bright red and her eyes were watery. She tossed the crumpled tissues into the garbage bin. “Withdrawal.”

“I need to get back,” said Patricia, wheeling her chair towards the door. “I’m the banker. You should come out and join us, it might make you feel better.”

“I will,” Laila replied, and Patricia left. She swung her legs over to the side of the bed and rubbed her eyes. It felt like every single nerve ending was on fire, especially in her lower limbs. She staggered over to the mounted mirror above the sink and studied her pale face. Her heart was racing in her chest. Laila, she told herself, staring into her reflection’s dark, haunted eyes, you can get through this. You’ve been here before, but this is the last time; things are different now. She wasn’t sure why—they just were. With a determined breath, she headed out into the common room.

The Monopoly game was spread out over half of the dining room table. Around it were clustered Patricia, Phil, Manny, Craig, Stacy, and Erik, who shot Laila a look of pure desperation as she walked in. He was sandwiched between Stacy and Phil. “I don’t know how I got roped into this,” he exclaimed when his eyes met Laila’s.

“It’s my fault,” cackled Stacy. “Come on Laila, we saved you the boot.”

The game was a total wash, as far as Laila was concerned. Right off the bat she went to jail twice, first for rolling three doubles in a row, and again for drawing a “Go to jail” card. Erik, meanwhile, quickly acquired the utilities and three out of four railroads, followed by the orange property group, where he built houses. When Laila landed on New York Avenue for the second time in a row, she cursed at him. It exacted a heavy toll with three houses, and the other players groaned in sympathy.

“How the fuck do I keep landing on your property?” she growled. “You’re such a hustler.”

Erik smirked at her. “My years of slum-lording have finally paid off. Now, pay up,” he said. Begrudgingly, she handed him her last $500 and a $100 bill. By the time the game was over he was the undisputed winner, with multiple hotels on the orange properties and a second monopoly over the green ones, thanks to an unsanctioned trade with Phil. “I suck at this,” Laila declared. She was almost completely broke, despite being conservative with her spending.

“You didn’t take enough chances,” Erik told her as they dismantled the board. “You can’t be afraid to spend money.”

“That’s easy to say when you have it,” she replied gloomily. She sat back and watched the others line up for smoke break, one arm across her chest and the other cradling her face in her palm.

Erik nodded towards the door. “Aren’t you going to go smoke?” he asked.

Laila made a face. “I’m crawling out of my skin right now. If I consume any more nicotine I’ll have a heart attack.”

He pondered her for a long moment. They were the only two left at the table, and the room suddenly felt a lot smaller. Laila felt the sweat run down her sides and suppressed a shiver. “I know what you need,” he said with a wry smile. He glanced over at the hallway. “Wait twenty seconds and then follow me.”

Slowly, as though it were perfectly natural, he stood up and headed down the front corridor in the direction of the social workers’ office. Laila took a deep breath, pressed her fingernails hard into her palms, and counted to twenty in her head. There were only two nurses behind the glass in the nurses’ station, and they were engaged in conversation. Nearly everyone else was outside smoking. When twenty seconds had passed, she got up and casually strolled into the hallway.

Erik was all the way at the far end, crouched before a door with what she assumed was a makeshift lockpick. Laila picked up her pace. As she reached him, the door sprung open, as if by magic.

“Come on,” he whispered, and slipped inside the rec room.

It was dark inside; all the shades were drawn except for the window closest to the equipment cage. Laila quietly closed the door behind her and backed up against it until her hands were flat against the wood. Erik stood about three feet away, and he turned to face her—a silhouette in the shadows except for his yellow-green eyes, which seemed to glow in the dark. Her breath caught in her throat. It dawned on both of them at the same exact time: they were completely alone.

“What’s that you were saying about taking chances,” she murmured softly. She watched his pupils dilate into saucers, and swallowed. The currents around them felt hot and dense; they were swimming in each other’s energy. He edged closer and closer towards her, locked into orbit by a force more powerful than gravity, and suspended a trembling hand in the air as if to caress her. Laila closed her eyes and leaned into it instinctively, but the touch never came. When she finally opened her eyes, she realized, with no small amount of disappointment, that he had reached past her to flick the light switch and backed away with a look of utter fear and humiliation. He’s just as afraid as I am, she thought. Damnit, Erik!

He seemed to be waiting for her to speak, and she sighed loudly. “What other rooms have you broken into?” she asked.

“Just this one and the social workers’ office, so far,” he replied. “Any ideas?”

“What about the pharmacy?” she half-joked.

“The pharmacy is undoubtedly double-locked, and might also require keycard access,” Erik answered. “If I had a laptop and a VPN I could do it. I can break into anything—if not with a pick, then a computer. They didn’t call me Trap Door Lover for nothing.”

“I’d like to see that,” Laila said rather dubiously.

“Is that _doubt_ I detect in your tone?” he scoffed. He waltzed over to the equipment cage and popped open the lock in less than two seconds with an air of great showmanship, then reached inside and beaned her over the head with a pool noodle. “Would you like another demonstration?” he asked.

Laila laughed with childlike delight. She took a swipe at the pool noodle and missed. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Almost everything I’ve learned I taught myself,” Erik said solemnly.

She was struck with sudden inspiration. “Hey, do you know where they keep the art supplies?”

Erik threw the pool noodle back in the equipment cage and pointed to the metal cabinet along the wall by the piano. “I think they’re in there,” he told her. He was on it immediately and had the cabinet doors swinging open in seconds.

“Oh my God,” Laila cried. “Those bastards were holding out on us—they have _watercolors_.” She fished through the supplies and pulled out a box of graphite colored pencils and several sheets of high quality paper.

Erik leaned against the cabinet and watched her loot the art supplies with an expression of unadulterated joy. “We’d better go,” he said, gazing at the clock on the wall. “They’ll be giving out meds soon.”

Laila stuffed the box of colored pencils down the back of her shorts and the paper down the front of her shirt. She grinned maniacally at him. “But what about the guitar?” she crooned, eyeing the guitar case in the equipment cage.

“Oh, I know you want it, Laila,” Erik snickered, “but there’s no way that’s gonna fit under your clothing.”

“You could carry it,” she suggested with moony eyes.

He closed the metal cabinet and corralled her towards the door. “Let’s leave the cage unlocked,” he said. “The rec room too. We can come back later. I’m sure the nurses wouldn’t object to a little... night music.”

As soon as they were out the door, an attendant came hurrying down the hallway. When he saw them together he stopped short and huffed with disapproval. “Mr. Dupuis, Ms. Ward, we’ve been looking for you. It’s time for meds.”

Erik and Laila glanced at each other innocently. “As you can plainly see, we’re right here,” Erik declared. Laila tried to walk as naturally as possible, but it was a challenge with a wide flat box stuffed into her shorts. She held back a giggle.

The attendant glared at Erik. “Mr. Dupuis,” he added, “you also have a visitor.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Laila ran off to stash her newfound bounty under the mattress in her room. It wasn’t a very creative hiding place, but there weren’t a lot of options. She went back out to the nurses’ station to receive her afternoon Suboxone dose. Erik had disappeared again, presumably to meet up with his mysterious visitor. I wonder who it is, Laila thought. His friend, the amateur psychologist? His lead engineer? 

“Yo Laila,” called Stacy. She was standing by the door to what Laila soon learned was the laundry room. “You gotta check this out.”

Laila sauntered over in a daze. She was in much better spirits than before, thanks to the clandestine art supplies, the medication, and—well, Erik. “What’s up?”

Stacy held up a basket of clothing. “This,” she said. “Look.” She picked up a long ivory lace dress from the pile and held it up. It had three-quarter-length sleeves and a low scooped neckline, with alternating bands of opaque and see-through lace. At the hips and knees there was a row of small, delicate white tassels. It was very bohemian.

“That’s beautiful,” Laila commented. “Is it yours?”

“Someone left it here,” said Stacy. “I just washed it.”

Laila fingered the intricate lace. “It looks like a wedding dress.”

“Maybe it is.” Stacy held the dress up to her figure.

“That’s really sad,” mused Laila. “What kind of bride goes to detox?”

Stacy got a look in her eye that spelled trouble. “Her loss is our gain,” she said with zero remorse. “It’s too small for me, I tried it on yesterday.” She glanced down at Laila’s petite frame. “Looks like it would fit you _perfectly_.”

“Oh, I’m no bride,” Laila deflected.

Stacy shoved the garment into her hands. “Try it on,” she insisted.

Laila sighed. The dress did look like it would fit. “No,” she said after a moment.

“Come on,” Stacy pleaded with clasped hands. “It’s so pretty, it would be a waste if someone didn’t get to keep it.”

Laila rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll try it on.”

Stacy clapped excitedly. “Yes! Let’s go to my room.”

Stacy’s room was only a couple doors down from Laila’s. Laila was impressed by the amount of makeup and toiletries her friend managed to cram around the tiny sink. Stacy was one of the lucky few in detox without a roommate; the other bed in the room was covered in her clothing. Laila stripped off her shorts and shirt and pulled the dress over her head. It slid silkily over her arms and down her torso.

Stacy was flabbergasted. “Oh my God, it’s gorgeous.” There was no full-length mirror, and Laila struggled to catch a glimpse of her bottom half in the mirror over the sink. “Wait,” cried Stacy. “Let me spruce you up.” She pushed Laila down on the bed and grabbed a tube of red lipstick.

“Stacy,” reprimanded Laila, squirming in her seat. She hated being fussed over.

“Just a sec,” Stacy said. She applied the lipstick and had Laila blot the excess on a tissue. “I want to do your hair. Can I take out the braid?”

Laila groaned. Before she could refuse, Stacy pulled the elastic off the end of her braid. She pumped a little hair product into her hands and separated all the dark tendrils with her fingers. They spilled over Laila’s shoulders in shiny uniform waves.

“Perfect,” Stacy announced, satisfied with her work. “Now you look like a bride.”

Laila got up and checked herself out in the mirror. “This is probably the nicest I’ve looked in years,” she cracked. “If only my mother could see.”

There was a presence at the door. “Ladies,” said the attendant, “if you want to go to the cafeteria for dinner you better hurry up.” It was the same attendant who caught Laila and Erik by the rec room, and he cast an odd look down at her dress.

“We’re coming,” Stacy told him. He left, and Laila moved to take off the dress. “Keep the dress on,” her friend commanded. “Don’t you want to show Erik?”

“Fuck you, Stacy,” Laila snapped.

They both looked up at the sound of a knock on the door, but it wasn’t the attendant. “Uh, hi,” said the knocker. It was Erik, hanging awkwardly in the doorway. “Do either of you want any pizza? Nadir brought in a whole pie, and they won’t let me save the leftovers...” His voice trailed off when his eyes landed on Laila in the dress. There was a subtle shift in his expression. “Are you getting _married_?” he asked.

Laila immediately turned beet-red. “This is all her fault,” she glowered at Stacy.

“Doesn’t she look nice?” Stacy asked, looking from Laila to Erik. She was enjoying this moment even more than anticipated.

Erik’s sight was fixed on Laila’s slender figure. “She looks very nice,” he admitted after a beat. “I... like your hair.”

“That’s it, I’m getting changed right now,” Laila declared. She walked over to the door and shooed Erik out of the room.

“Wait, are you gonna eat any pizza?” he protested.

“We’ll be out in a minute,” she told him, and shut the door. She turned to Stacy, who burst into giggles. “ _I hate you_.”

“Did you see the look on his face?” Stacy guffawed. “That was priceless.”

Laila quickly got out of the dress and pulled on her normal attire. “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she scolded her friend, “because I’m never wearing that dress again.”

Stacy picked up the dress from where she had discarded it and folded it neatly. “Whatever you say, Laila,” she acquiesced. “Just take it with you.”

They walked back out to the common room, where the small group of patients who ate meals on the unit were well into dinner; everyone else had left for the cafeteria. On the couch by the TV sat Erik and his friend, a handsome, clean-cut man who appeared to be in his mid-to-late forties, with smooth golden brown skin and piercing gray eyes. There was a greasy pizza box on the table alongside a bunch of napkins and paper plates. Erik waved the girls over.

“Laila, Stacy,” he said, “this is my friend Nadir.”

“Hello Laila, Stacy,” Nadir replied. He was the complete opposite of Erik in many respects—smiling warmly, sitting casually but attentively on the couch, with one leg crossed over the other. “It’s nice to meet you both. Would you like some pizza?”

“Yes please,” answered Stacy, wasting no time. She opened the box, snagged two slices of pepperoni pizza on a paper plate, and plopped down on a vinyl chair.

“Are you the amateur psychologist?” Laila asked Nadir, taking the last two slices from the box. She sat on the chair adjacent to Stacy.

Nadir shot Erik an exasperated look. “What exactly have you been telling people about me?”

“I haven’t told them anything about you,” Erik stated matter-of-factly. “Don’t flatter yourself. I may have mentioned your penchant for psychoanalysis.”

“Did you mention your penchant for _overdosing_ at my house while I’m on vacation?”

“You’re retired,” Erik grumbled under his breath. “Your whole life is a vacation.”

“Ooh,” Stacy chimed in. “That’s bad form, Erik.”

Erik glared at her. “In my defense, there were extenuating circumstances,” he responded blithely. “It hasn’t been the best year.”

There was a momentary lull. “But things are better now,” Nadir added, looking across their faces. “You’re still here, you’re in treatment.”

Erik exhaled. He and Laila shared a private glance. “ _Dum spiro, spero_ ,” he said. She smiled knowingly at him.

“What?” said Stacy.

“Nothing,” he replied quickly.

“So, Laila.” Nadir turned towards her. “Erik tells me you’re a musician.”

Laila flushed a little when she realized she must have been a topic of conversation. “Yes, I’m a bassist and a guitarist,” she answered, pausing to eat a fallen piece of pepperoni with her fingers.

“From what I hear,” Nadir continued, “your musicianship is the saving grace of rehab.”

“Shut up Nadir,” Erik warned.

Laila laughed nervously. “Um, yeah... I would say that goes both ways. It’s been, uh... really nice.” The words sounded absurd after she said them. Both she and Erik stared at the floor, equally mortified.

“Well,” said Nadir, “I’m glad there’s someone that can appeal to Erik’s better nature.”

“As if you know anything about it, old man,” Erik sneered.

“Do you see how he treats me?” Nadir shook his head.

Laila raised her eyebrows. “You should hear him talk to the counselors.”

“I can only imagine,” Nadir opined.

“Okay, okay, enough about that,” Erik interrupted. “Nadir, I hope you brought my car.”

Nadir sighed. “I did not. I told you, I am not comfortable driving that thing.”

“He still can’t drive a stick,” Erik commented disparagingly.

“That is not at all the issue,” his friend clarified. “Do you really want me driving your Porsche down Route 22?”

“You could have taken the backroads through Springfield,” Erik countered.

Stacy grinned; there was nothing quite like witnessing two grown men bicker like an old married couple. “I really appreciate the pizza, guys,” she said, getting up from the chair, “but I’m gonna go smoke. It was nice to meet you, Nadir.”

“I also need to smoke,” Laila added hastily. “Thank you so much for the food.” She brought her hands together in gratitude.

Nadir nodded. “You’re very welcome.” He held her gaze for an extended moment, and Laila wondered exactly how much Erik had told him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The sky was almost entirely clear from the day’s storm, and Laila sat placidly on the Victorian bench in the courtyard, smoking and admiring the pink and purple hues of the sunset. It had turned out to be quite a beautiful night. Stacy was sitting next to her; they were both satiated and contemplative. “I want him, Stacy,” Laila resolved quietly. She took a long drag on her cigarette. “What’s wrong with me?” 

“You’re a human being,” Stacy said. “Give yourself a break. Have you guys talked about it?”

“Not really,” replied Laila. “There was this moment earlier when I was sure he was going to... I don’t know what, exactly, but it didn’t happen.”

“He’s obviously terrified of rejection,” her friend informed her. “You might have to make the first move.”

“I’m not very good at that,” she admitted sheepishly, “since I’m also afraid of rejection.”

“He is definitely not going to reject you,” Stacy assured her. “You need to find a place where you can be alone. Wash some clothes, and pull him into the laundry room when no one’s looking. Have you... talked about the mask?”

“Hell no,” said Laila.

“I stand by the laundry room option,” Stacy told her. “Turn off the light and plant one on him. You’re not gonna see anything in the dark.”

“Ladies,” shouted the door attendant, gesturing exaggeratedly at his wristwatch. “It’s time for the meeting.”

They looked at each other and groaned. “We’re coming,” Stacy yelled, stubbing out her cigarette butt on the wrought iron arm rest.

“This place is a fascist prison,” Laila muttered, following suit.

Stacy nudged her as they walked back inside. “You should sit next to him in the meeting, Laila.”

“What’s that going to accomplish?” Laila asked.

“Just do it,” Stacy said.

When they reached the classroom, Laila and Stacy headed straight for the two empty chairs directly to Erik’s right. Laila could feel the heat from his green eyes tracking her as she sat down. The blood pounded as it rushed through her skull. Stacy leaned across Laila and whispered, “Hey Erik, it was really nice of your friend to bring us pizza.” Her long red hair brushed the tip of Laila’s shoulder.

Erik smirked. “He’s very good at ingratiating himself.”

Laila wanted to say something, but the words kept getting caught in her throat. As the meeting began, she took to studying the contrast between her bare legs and Erik’s skinny black-clad ones sitting side by side, unconsciously mirroring each other. He’s so close, and yet so far, she thought frantically; it was damn near impossible to concentrate on anything else. She slouched down a little further in an attempt to get their feet to line up, but he was too tall, so she stretched out as far as she could and slowly flexed her legs. Next to her, he sighed loudly and shifted.

By the time the last few minutes of the meeting arrived, Laila was ready to be doused in cold water. She could feel the visceral proximity of every hair on his arm, a scant inch away, the perfect symmetry of their hands, their legs, their feet. She hadn’t registered a single word of the meeting. “Last call, guys,” said the meeting facilitator. “Does anyone have a burning desire?”

I do, Laila wanted to scream, unaware of the AA colloquialism for the urge to use. Her left leg twitched violently, causing her foot to jump and brush against Erik’s. She stared at the sight of her scuffed Converse sneaker rubbing the toe of his black Rick Owens. Finally, there was contact! It resonated throughout her entire body, and her mind buzzed from the rush. Around them, in another universe, the room recited the Serenity prayer, and the time came for everyone to get up and join hands. With a decisive, fluid motion, Erik reached over and took hers early, long before everyone else did it. They stood there in silent unison, not looking at each other, as the group shouted the “Keep coming back!” mantra. When the chant was over, they were the last to drop hands.

He turned to face her. “Keep coming back, Laila,” he said in a low, sultry voice.

“It works if you work it, Erik,” she grinned.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

Opening tracks:  
Massive Attack, “Everywhen”, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, “Crimson and Clover”, Smashing Pumpkins, “La Dolly Vita”, New Order, “Your Silent Face” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Naturally, it was night. She stood in the rocky clearing atop Torne Mountain and walked a clockwise circle around the inner perimeter of the stone living room, her arms raised to the sky like a druid priestess before the arcing flames of the fire. The long white train of her dress billowed in the breeze behind her, dancing with invisible zephyrs on the mountainside. As she closed the circuit, tiny white flowers blossomed and scattered at her feet. Just beyond view to the east hovered the encroaching dawn, poised like a lover summoned from the depths, waiting for the incantation to spill forth from her lips in a wordless cry and form letters of pure light, shimmering in the air and resonating like distant bells coming closer, closer…_

Almost there _, whispered an internal voice. She looked down and saw a black torrent of energy being funneled away from her bare feet into the earth below. That’s my darkness, she thought, and the scope of her perception widened, deepened. Floating across the surface of the ether, a swan unfolded its wings and craned its long graceful neck towards her. It swam closer and closer, until it filled her entire vision with light, bringing a profound shift in energy. The flames leapt into the sky, and she knew in her gut she was no longer alone. A pale thin hand reached around from behind her and traced a slow, tantalizing path up her inner knee and across the soft expanse of her thigh to her hip. Another hand slid up the side of her waist, cupped her breast with skeletal fingers, and_ squeezed _. She closed her eyes, surrendering to the heat of the moment, and cried out as she was swiftly mounted from behind._

∞

Laila gasped and sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding furiously in her chest. _What the fuck was that?_ Her whole body pulsed and tingled with unresolved tension, and the bedsheets were drenched in sweat. _So close..._

“Did you say something, Laila?” came Patricia’s groggy voice from the next bed over. 

Laila fell back onto her damp pillow and exhaled loudly. She squinted at the ghostly clockface on the wall; she could barely register the time, 4:44am. “It was only a dream,” she murmured, despite the fact that it felt more vivid and real than any dream. _Too_ real. She silently cursed her body for its traitorous state of arousal. 

Vital signs came around 5:15, and Laila took refuge on a vinyl chair in the common room afterwards, fully cocooned in her oversized Berklee hoodie, with her fuzzy-socked feet up on the seat and knees tucked inside the sweatshirt. She gazed longingly out at the courtyard, suspended in the blue hues of twilight. It was comforting to just sit there and listen to the sleepy, shuffling patients and the rhythmic sound of the blood pressure cuff inflating and deflating. She closed her eyes and drifted. 

“Pssst,” whispered a sonorous voice, several minutes later. She opened her eyes to find Erik sitting in the chair at the end of the dining room table, directly across her field of vision. The vitals nurse was strapping the blood pressure cuff around his arm, but he was only focused on her. A Cheshire cat smile slowly spread across his face as their eyes met. “You should go back to bed,” he purred. 

“My bed is _wet_ ,” she said with quiet dismay. They stared at each other. 

The nurse finished taking his blood pressure and removed the cuff. “BP’s on the high side, Mr. Dupuis.” There was a note of judgment in her voice. 

Erik looked from the nurse to Laila and back, and flashed a lopsided grin. He jumped up with the spry energy of a person half his age and meandered through the furniture towards the patient rooms, lightly brushing Laila’s shoulder as he passed, like the faintest echo of a dream. The vitals nurse was busy charting, so she didn’t see a thing. Laila sighed with the totality of her being. It was going to be a rough morning. When she finally extracted herself from the chair, with the intention of taking a hot therapeutic shower, she discovered the room was already occupied. 

“Who’s using our shower?” she asked Patricia, surprised to find her back in bed. 

Patricia shrugged. “The nurses brought in a new guy late last night... I think they’re in there now, hosing him down.” 

“Why are they using _our_ bathroom?” Laila demanded. 

Patricia didn’t have an answer. Laila threw herself back down on the bed, buried her face in her hands, and let out a muted scream. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. Withdrawal symptoms were one thing; she knew what was coming with every instinct in her body. What she couldn’t tolerate was this other _knowing_ —knowing she wanted him, that he was seeping into her dreams and that something inside her was changing as a result. A soundtrack would have made things bearable, but there was no bartering for sonic privileges in detox, despite the fact that she would’ve given an arm and a leg for the music library on her phone. 

“Laila,” Patricia whispered, perhaps thirty minutes later, “they’re done with the shower. You can use it first.” 

“Thanks,” Laila replied after a long pause, staring blankly at the ceiling. 

But the mindfuck wasn’t over yet. Laila stripped off her shirt and wrapped her torso in a threadbare towel, put on shower sandals, grabbed the caddy of toiletries, and traipsed out into the hallway. The shower room was open, and someone had left the light on. With a feeling of relief, she slipped inside... and nearly threw up. She gagged and stumbled out into the hallway. “Oh God, what the _fuck_ is that smell?” she shouted. “Patricia, have you smelled the shower?” 

“No,” her roommate said. She wheeled past Laila to investigate and came back no more than ten seconds later, holding her nose and looking paler than usual. “Yeah, it smells pretty bad in there,” she agreed. 

“It’s rancid,” Laila fumed. Her hands were shaking. “This is unacceptable. I’m going to go complain.” 

She strode off to the nurses’ station and approached the nurse who was tasked with giving out toiletries, disposable razors, and shaving cream. There was a short line of patients ahead of her, but Laila didn’t care. “Excuse me,” she called loudly, not bothering to mask the edge in her voice. “I can’t use my shower.” 

The nurse cast her a disinterested glance. “Why not?” 

“They hosed down the new guy in there and it reeks, like a hot dumpster in the sun.” 

The nurse pushed the glasses up on her nose. “It’s the only handicap-accessible shower we have on the unit,” she responded without an iota of sympathy. 

“It’s my shower, and it _smells_ ,” Laila protested. “Somebody has to clean it.” She put her hand on her hip. 

“The new guy’s not actually handicapped,” announced a dulcet voice behind her. “I mean, he might have wet brain. Nursing is just lazy.” 

Laila didn’t have to look to know who it was. Slowly, she pivoted to face him. His emerald-rimmed irises burned into hers. She looked down and saw she was wearing a towel over boxer shorts. “You could use _my_ shower,” he offered suggestively. 

“Keep dreaming, Mr. Dupuis,” snapped the nurse. “Ms. Ward, you’ll have to use another shower until someone can clean yours—one of the ladies’ showers, please.” She gave Laila a pointed look. “In the meantime, you might want to put on a shirt.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In the end, Laila used Stacy’s shower, and wound up lingering on the second unoccupied bed in Stacy’s room as her friend put on makeup. “I feel like I’m dying,” she said, picking at the scab on her thumbnail. She had already gotten dressed and was in the process of towel-drying her hair. 

“You’ll live,” Stacy replied. She was applying liquid eyeliner in the mirror. “You want some moisturizer?” 

“Already moisturized,” said Laila. 

“Where are you on your Sub taper?” Stacy asked. 

“Um, I think I’m down to 2mg today.” 

Stacy turned and gave her a pitying look. “Girl, you in the thick of it now.” 

“Yeah,” Laila huffed. She collapsed onto the bed. “No one told me I was gonna start having sex dreams.” 

Stacy stifled a giggle out of respect for her friend’s suffering. “Your body’s waking up. It’s a good thing, Laila. It means you’re alive.” 

“Maybe I was better off dead,” Laila cracked. 

“Don’t say that,” Stacy told her. “Come on, let’s go smoke.” 

They went out to the common room, where they had to beg an attendant to let them into the courtyard. “We’re short-staffed today, and it’s the weekend,” the attendant informed them gruffly. “You’re going to have to wait a few minutes.” 

“They’re gonna be short one more if you don’t let us outside,” Stacy retorted. 

Five minutes later, they were outside smoking on the bench in meditative silence. It was a beautiful clear morning, with a crisp note of autumn in the air; Laila felt purified by the sun and the wind. She put on her purple sunglasses and took a deep breath of mountain air. God, she thought to herself, if you’re listening, I need you to help me get through this, I can’t do it alone. Eventually, the signal came for them to go back inside, and they went to stand at the end of the line for breakfast in the cafeteria. 

Erik got there right as they were about to leave. “Laila, let me see your shirt,” he said. He grabbed her shoulders and gently spun her around. The shirt was black with _glorious results of a misspent youth_ written in large lowercase letters on the back. She had cut off the sleeves herself. 

“It’s Joan Jett and the Blackhearts,” she responded. “She’s my hero.” 

“Heroine,” he corrected. 

“I’m abstaining from that word for the time being,” she told him. The breakfast line began its daily pilgrimage out of the unit and up the stairs to the second floor. 

“Is your entire wardrobe band t-shirts?” he asked with a slight smile. 

“About ninety-five percent,” she deadpanned. 

He leaned in a little. “What’s the other five percent?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she replied coyly. She still had a fair amount of gear left from her stint as a dominatrix, stuffed in the back of the Allston closet. 

Erik studied the front of her shirt, where Joan posed with her axe and her signature shag haircut. “You look a lot like her,” he remarked. “Minus the shag.” 

“That’s a high compliment in my book,” Laila said. “You should see my 7th grade yearbook picture. I got my hair cut the day before, and showed the stylist the cover of _I Love Rock ’N Roll_ —that photo of her in the pink suit jacket.” She shook her head. “Let’s just say, it didn’t translate. I came out looking more like Ziggy Stardust.” 

“Well, Bowie’s iconic, at the very least,” said Erik. “I don’t think I had a 7th grade yearbook picture.” 

“That’s too bad,” she told him. “I bet you were cute.” 

“I don’t think _anyone’s_ ever called me that,” he snorted. 

At breakfast, they took their customary seats across from each other. Laila munched on a piece of soggy toast and pondered the sea of disgruntled faces before her. The cafeteria was more crowded than usual, with another long table occupied by kids from the adolescent psych ward. Laila couldn’t help looking at them and thinking of her younger self. A few couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old. “They’re so young,” she commented, half under her breath. 

Erik saw where her gaze had landed and took a sip of coffee. “I was about that age on my first trip through the system,” he said with feigned indifference. 

Laila immediately picked up on his shift in tone. “What happened?” 

Erik put down his coffee and flicked an empty sugar packet across his tray. “I wasn’t the easiest kid to raise,” he admitted. “My dad died before I was born, so Madeleine had her hands full. I tried to run away a lot. They diagnosed me with ADHD when I started having behavioral issues in school—fighting with the other kids, mouthing off in class, climbing up to the roof—typical kid stuff. Facial prosthetics weren’t as advanced back then, so I wore a mask like this one. It didn’t help matters.” 

Laila made a face. “Kids suck.” 

“I gave it as good as I got it,” he assured her. “Anyway, I started seeing this outside psychiatrist, Dr. Barye, and for a little while I actually made some progress. He realized they’d misdiagnosed me, but by that point I’d been on Ritalin for a couple years. When they tried to wean me off, I didn’t react well. There was... an incident with a mirror, and they were afraid I was going to hurt myself, so they threw me in the psych ward.” 

“How old were you?” she asked. 

“Eleven.” 

“How long were you there?” 

“A couple months.” 

Laila shook her head disdainfully. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said. “I was fourteen my first trip around the block.” 

He took another sip of coffee. “What happened to you?” 

“Al died, and I lost it,” she confessed. “I love my parents, but I’ve never been close to them. Al and I, we were cut from the same cloth. He lived with us. He was my rock.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know how to handle his death, and I started cutting. It went on for a while, until my dad found out. Then there was the night I cut myself a little too deep and almost bled out. They rushed me to the ER, and I got hospitalized. I still have the scar.” She held out her left forearm and pointed to a thin white scar about two inches long, running lengthwise over the median antebrachial vein. 

Erik reached out and delicately ran his fingertip along the ridge of the scar. “I can tell it was deep,” he said softly. 

A wide shadow appeared over their end of the table. It was the attendant, who had been watching them stealthily from afar. “No touching, guys,” he reprimanded in a curt voice. “Don’t make me separate you two.” Their hands sprang apart. 

“I’d like to see you try,” Erik muttered as the attendant walked away. 

“Think you could take him?” Laila teased. “He’s got at least a hundred pounds on you.” 

“I’ve taken down bigger,” Erik said solemnly, still fixed on the attendant. “What I lack in mass, I make up for in madness and ingenuity.” 

“I have no doubt about that,” she replied. Under the table, she stretched out her right leg until their feet were touching. 

His eyes flew to hers. “There’s no group this afternoon,” he said slowly. “What do you say to some renegade music therapy?” 

She smiled demurely. “Do you even have to ask?” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Back on the unit, Laila got her morning dose of Suboxone, a measly milligram. She would receive her second dose in the afternoon. “Where are you on your Sub taper?” she asked Erik, who was standing in line behind her at the nurses’ station. 

“Last day before they pull the rug out from under me,” he answered bleakly. 

“I’m a day behind you,” she said. “I’m already freaking out.” 

The nurse behind the glass cleared her throat. “Ms. Ward, please step away from the counter so the line can keep moving.” 

Laila moved off to the side and watched Erik swallow at least six pills at once. “You’re on a lot more medication than me,” she blurted without thinking. 

He gave her a dry look. “What an astute observation.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she clarified. 

He gave the nurse back the tiny paper cup. “I’m not sure you’re aware of this,” he said as they walked towards the courtyard, where another smoke break was underway, “but I have bipolar disorder—type II, the hypomanic kind. I typically manage my symptoms without medication, but since they took away my Klonopin and I’m detoxing, they put me on a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic. Ativan, too, but I barely feel that with my level of benzo tolerance.” 

“Mixing benzos and opiates is dangerous.” Laila nabbed her final Pall Mall from the attendant and they went outside. “I almost ODed that way.” 

He looked away and grimaced. “I know all about it.” 

“Do you think the meds are helping you?” she asked. They sat down on the Victorian bench. 

Erik shrugged. “I guess. I don’t trust doctors, but Dr. Reed knows her shit. I’m probably going to keep seeing her after I get discharged. She’s more open-minded than most, and unlike other psychiatrists, she does actual therapy with her patients. She’s the best thing about this place.” He glanced at her. “Well, maybe not the _best_ thing.” 

Laila took a long haul on her cigarette. “Do you think you’re going to do the outpatient program here?” 

Erik scoffed. “No way. I’ve gotta get back to New York.” 

She slumped a little. “I can’t believe I’m back in Jersey. I thought I’d escaped this place forever. It feels like my life is over.” 

“Your life’s only beginning, Laila,” Erik said. “You know there’s a train that goes right to New York.” He nudged her gently. “There’s also a bus.” 

“I’m aware of New Jersey Transit,” she told him. 

“Nadir lives twenty minutes away,” he continued. “I’m out here every weekend.” 

“Every weekend?” she pressed dubiously. 

He looked her straight in the eye. “Every weekend.” 

She took another drag on her cigarette. “To be honest, I’m not sure how long I’ll last cohabitating with Roxy. She hates me.” 

“Who’s Roxy?” 

She laughed. “How have I not mentioned this? She’s my step-mom. She married my dad while I was away at Berklee. I don’t even think she knows I’m back. She went on some kind of luxury cruise for three weeks because, like, that’s her life.” She blew out a smoke ring and watched it float away. The leaves of the trees rustled in the breeze. 

“You survived everything else,” Erik said. “I’m sure you can survive her.” 

Laila grinned. “I guess the real question is, can she survive me?” 

“I’ve learned through experience that there is a subtle art to driving a person mad,” he volunteered. “If she gives you shit, you let the Opera Ghost know.” 

“Opera Ghost?” 

“I spent a lot of time in opera houses as a kid,” he replied with a mischievous glint. 

“Is that how you learned to sing like a god?” she asked. 

“No, I was born with that,” he winked. “But I learned a thing or two about haunting a building. Or a person.” 

She flicked the ash off her cigarette. “How exactly do you haunt a person?” 

“Being exceptionally good at ventriloquism is a start.” 

She stared disbelievingly at his mouth, which hadn’t moved a fraction of an inch. “You’re fucking with me,” she stammered. 

“Fucking with you?” Erik echoed in a mocking falsetto, his lips perfectly still. He burst out laughing at her indignant expression. 

“It’s time for group, guys,” called the attendant from the door. 

Laila frowned. “It feels like the smoke breaks are getting shorter and shorter.” She threw her cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with her foot. 

He watched her bend over to pick up the butt. “Perhaps time just ceases to have meaning when we’re together.” 

“So you’ve noticed it too,” she whispered. 

“GUYS! GROUP!” the attendant barked. 

Laila shot the attendant a death glare. “Chill out, we’re coming!” she yelled. She and Erik got up reluctantly from the bench. 

“You know, you’re starting to give them a bit of an attitude,” Erik observed as they walked back inside. “It’s... extremely enticing.” 

She nudged him with her elbow. “What can I say, you must be rubbing off on me.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Goals group had a different energy on the weekend, since Otto was off and his substitute, a newly minted therapist in her mid-twenties, was soft-spoken and non-confrontational. She spent most of the time jotting down copious notes. Laila watched her with a discerning eye, knowing they were probably around the same age. For a brief instant she wondered if they went to high school together, and decided she didn’t care. She and Erik were among the last to join group, and there were only a few seats left, situated on opposite sides of the circle. I’m in this way over my head, Laila realized, keeping her eyes on the floor to avoid staring at him. It was bewildering to want someone so intensely after being numb for so long. Desire coursed through her, pulling her forward like the rip tide. Even from across the room, she felt tethered to him like a magnet. It gave her tunnel vision and made her heart race, like she was walking across a narrow precipice with a sharp drop into oblivion on either side. 

It’s fine, Laila, she reassured herself. You’re going to get out of this place and stay clean and play music again, and you’re going to look back on this and laugh at yourself for struggling against something so inevitable. Of _course_ you met the man of your dreams in rehab. Of course he’s a bipolar drug addict and a disfigured musical genius— 

“Excuse me, Laila?” interjected the therapist. “It’s your turn.” 

She snapped to attention with a jolt and fudged her way through a goal for the day (to do “something creative”). Despite being vague, it certainly wasn’t a lie. Her eyes flickered to Erik as she said it, and she got a warm rush registering his look of approval. Maybe love is the real drug lacking here, she mused to herself, maybe we’re all just love-starved, and knew it to be intrinsically true. She felt a sudden pang in her chest for all the addicts and alcoholics around her. I wonder how Erik would react if I told him he’s my new drug of choice, she smirked. For a junkie fresh in recovery, that was practically bordering on romance. 

When group let out, Laila remained fixed in her seat, legs crossed with an ankle over one knee and a palm cradling her chin. She had started to get up, but every bone in her body ached in weary protest, and she let inertia win. Erik floated over to her with an air of casual nonchalance as the other patients dispersed. “Penny for your thoughts?” he said, holding out a penny and rolling it deftly across his knuckles. 

“They’ll cost you more than that,” she told him, and winced. “My entire body hurts.” 

“That’s unfortunate,” he replied glibly. He flipped the penny up in the air and caught it. “It’s too bad Oak Haven hasn’t embraced more radical harm reduction strategies, like medical marijuana. You know New Jersey is one of the few states to consider opioid use disorder a qualifying condition for their medical marijuana program.” 

“Where do I sign up?” she asked. He extended a hand to her with a gentlemanly flourish and she took it without hesitation; with a graceful tug, he lifted her off the chair, and they came perilously close to crashing together. Their height difference was much more pronounced from this intimate vantage point; Laila was 5’7”, and she barely grazed the bottom of the mask. She gazed up at him with unabashedly adoring eyes, unable to focus on anything but his thin-lipped, irresistibly smart-talking mouth. They were still holding hands; neither was willing to let go. 

“The first thing I’m going to do when I leave,” Erik said softly, running his fingers lightly over hers, “is roll a joint and take you on a drive.” 

“Where are we gonna go?” she asked, knowing full well she would go anywhere. She ran her thumb over his and entwined their hands a little more firmly. 

He stared down at her with all the heat and intensity of the sun. “Does it matter?” 

“No,” she whispered, and took a deep breath. “What’s the _second_ thing you’re going to do?” 

“Yo Erik!” called a jarring voice from the door. It was Stacy. “Sorry to interrupt,” she amended with an apologetic nod to Laila, “but the doctor’s looking for you.” 

They dropped hands with a sigh of mutual frustration that was palpable. Erik squeezed the sides of his temples and glared at Stacy. “What doctor?” he finally asked in a low voice, over-annunciating to convey his annoyance. 

“I don’t know his name,” Stacy proclaimed. “The bald fat guy.” 

“Oh, _him_.” Erik waved his hand dismissively. “What does he want?” 

“I have no idea,” Stacy told him. 

Erik looked at Laila with a mixture of longing and regret. “I guess I’d better go find out,” he said in a much gentler tone. 

“You should do that,” she murmured, still hopelessly lost in their eye contact. Then he stepped away and went for the door, and the bubble of tension burst. 

“You have incredibly shitty timing,” Laila scowled at her friend once Erik was gone. 

“Better me than one of the nurses,” Stacy grinned. “Next time try closing the door.”


	10. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

Opening tracks:  
Korine, “Elegance & You”, Mazzy Star, “Be My Angel”, The Smiths, “How Soon Is Now?” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

They could hear the argument all the way from the common room, where Laila was sitting with her Marble notebook, a few stolen colored pencils, and some blank paper. It had been going on for about a minute, and was rapidly escalating in both volume and intensity. Although it was impossible to discern what was being said, she knew one thing with certainty—one of the voices was Erik’s. Stacy sat across from her with raised eyebrows and a bemused expression, filing her nails and flipping through a magazine. They exchanged a look at the sound of a door slam reverberating throughout the unit. 

Laila kept a discreet eye on the activities in the nurses’ station as she sketched. A minute later, she saw the doctor emerge from the hall and slip back into the nurses’ station. Even from a distance, Laila could tell his face was pink and sweaty. Automatically she hated him, and blamed him for whatever transpired. 

“I’m gonna go check on Erik,” she said to Stacy. 

Stacy turned the page with a small, knowing smile. “Go get him, Laila.” 

The nurses behind the glass were talking with the doctor, who was frantically scribbling away in a patient chart—presumably Erik’s. God only knows what he’s writing in there, Laila thought as she got up. She walked back towards her room, but headed right instead of left where the corridor split. Erik’s room was just around the bend at the other end. When she got there, the door was closed. She steeled herself for a moment, took a determined breath, and knocked. 

“Go away,” came the acrid response from within. 

Laila put her face all the way up to the door. “Erik, it’s me.” 

There was fumbling on the other side, and a few seconds later the door opened. Erik looked about as disgruntled as she expected. She knew he was agitated because his hair was sticking straight up. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. 

“No,” Erik replied shortly. His eyes were wild. “I _fucking hate_ that prick.” 

She pushed her way inside the room and closed the door. “What did he do to you?” 

Erik crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “He wanted what they all want,” he sneered. “He wanted to see my face, _again_. Under the guise of a follow-up medical exam—all strictly routine, of course. It’s not like my face has anything to do with this whatsoever.” He kicked the doorstop, and it sprung back defiantly. “I’m not a freak show specimen,” he muttered. 

“That guy’s an asshole,” Laila declared. “He told me I have a genetic predisposition to opiates while knowing next to nothing about me.” 

“The state of medicine in this country is an absolute sham,” he glowered. “Everybody’s a specialist, but no one grasps the ability to see the big picture.” 

Laila reflected on this. “And what’s the big picture?” she asked. 

He sighed and collapsed a little. “That my face shouldn’t matter, but it does,” he said quietly. “To everyone.” 

“Not to everyone,” she responded softly. 

“You say that now,” he countered. 

She looked him up and down with no small amount of grit. “Well, when you’re ready, I’m willing to prove you wrong.” 

Erik didn’t have a response. He stared at her like she was the most beautiful, terrifying thing he’d ever seen. She took a tentative step forward, reached out, and took his hand. “I mean it, Erik.” 

Something inside him snapped, and he grabbed her wrist before she could get any closer. “Not here, Laila,” he said with an uneasy laugh, glancing over at the beds. “They’ll be doing checks any minute now, and they’re already suspicious.” 

She huffed. “What do you mean?” 

He rolled his eyes. “I’m guessing you didn’t get the lecture about fraternizing with other patients.” 

“I must’ve missed that one,” she said, and suddenly felt emboldened by the circumstances. She slipped out of his grasp and took his hands in hers, then lightly pinioned him against the wall. “It’s too bad they neglected to inform me of the rules,” she whispered with glittering eyes. She trailed her fingers over his palms and along his forearms, which were as pale and scarred as her own. 

He swallowed, closed his eyes for an instant, and drew in a quick breath, floundering for words. “Laila...” 

She stood up on her tip-toes and leaned in towards his ear. “It’s okay, Erik,” she murmured, and pressed her lips to his earlobe in a gentle kiss. 

He gasped out loud, and she fully savored the moment before pulling back with a victorious smile. As if on cue, a heavy knock came on the door. “Laila,” Erik hissed, “get behind the bed.” Every inch of his exposed neck was flushed. 

She made a run for it and dived behind the bed closest to the window right as Erik opened the door. “Yes?” he answered, with a slight tremor in his voice. 

“Just checking in on you, Mr. Dupuis,” replied the nurse. “I understand things got a little heated between you and Dr. Russo.” 

“Dr. Russo needs to learn to respect boundaries,” Erik snapped. 

“The doctor has a lot of issues,” the nurse admitted dryly, “the least of which is his bedside manner. You’ll have to accept an apology from me on his behalf.” 

“With all due respect,” he said after a beat, “I don’t have to accept anything from you.” 

The nurse sighed loudly. “What do you want, Mr. Dupuis?” 

The ball was in his court. Laila envisioned the gears rapidly turning in his head. “All this unnecessary poking and prodding hasn’t been great for my anxiety,” Erik stated evenly. “I’m sure an Ativan would set me right. A full milligram, if you please.” He paused. “Unfettered access to the musical instruments would also be immensely helpful.” 

The nurse considered this carefully. “Give me a minute so I can talk to the charge nurse,” she said wearily. 

“Thank you,” Erik said with a nod, and shut the door. He walked over to where Laila was sprawled on the floor between the bed and the window and beamed down at her with a look of utter triumph. “That really worked out in my favor,” he grinned, and extended a helping hand. She took it and he hoisted her effortlessly to her feet. 

“I’d say so,” she giggled, and looked down at the bed. Suddenly, she felt self-conscious. “I, um, hope I wasn’t out of line earlier.” 

Erik shook his head and laughed a little; the sound tinkled in her ears like silvery bells. He reached out and gently caressed the side of her face with his palm, studying the sculpture of her features as though she were a masterwork of art. The air stopped short in her throat as he traced a thumb over her lips, lingering there with momentary fascination. Slowly he cupped her chin and tilted it upwards. “Laila,” he breathed melodiously, gazing down at her with brilliant shimmering eyes, “if there are lines between us, Lord knows I want you to cross them.” 

A noise out in the hallway brought them both reeling back to reality, and he quickly let go of her and stepped back. Laila felt instantly defeated. “I guess I’d better go,” she said sadly. Her heart was still pounding from the phantom sensation of his touch. She breezed by him and started for the door. 

“Laila, _wait_ ,” he commanded with a sharp note in his voice, and she froze in place. In a flash, he was upon her and spun her around. 

“Erik—” she protested dizzily, but she never got to finish because he lunged forward and kissed her smack on the mouth, with all the pent-up fury and passion of a desperate man at the end of his rope. She was so shocked that for a split second, she saw stars; she barely had time to react before he broke it off and pulled away with a groan. Her entire face tingled from colliding with the mask, and she licked her lips to get a better taste of him, dark and sweet and lovely. 

“Go,” he grunted, “before we cross another line.” 

She took a couple steps back, trying to find the right words, but her head was clouded with emotions, hormones, nerves. “When we get out of here,” she said, brimming with so many unspoken things, “I hope we cross all of them.” 

She turned and left before she could register his reaction, and didn’t stop moving until she got to her room and threw herself down on the bed. Then she buried her face in the pillow and screamed. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Laila hid out in her room until it was time for lunch. Reality seemed to be rapidly unraveling, along with her resolve to behave. Four days, she told herself, four days is all it took for me to fall for someone who makes me want to break every rule in that stupid patient handbook. She lost herself for a little bit in a perilous fantasy of what such a scenario might entail. _Maybe I shouldn’t have told him I want to cross_ every _line._

When she got on line for lunch in the cafeteria, Erik and Stacy were standing together, engaged in conversation. Laila watched them with amusement as she approached from afar. For a self-proclaimed curmudgeon, he sure knows how to charm the people he likes, she thought wryly as she walked up behind them. 

Stacy turned around first. “Hi Laila,” she said emphatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Did you know that Erik used to DJ at Limelight?” 

Erik looked slightly embarrassed. “It was a long time ago,” he said to Laila. “I self-emancipated at sixteen and came of age in 1990. It was a good time to be young and stupid, unlike today. Electronic music was how I rebelled against my mother, and New York was my playground. Still is.” He scoffed at Stacy. “I played _everywhere_ , by the way, not just Limelight. Tunnel, Palladium, Club USA... those are just the Gatien properties. That one-eyed bastard took advantage of my goodwill so many times.” 

“I _loved_ Tunnel,” cried Stacy. 

“Wait, you knew Peter Gatien?” Laila asked, recalling the notorious nightclub mogul. 

He snickered. “Who do you think talked him into building the Giger Room?” 

“No frigging way,” Stacy exclaimed. 

“It was one of the last things I did before leaving the club scene,” Erik told them matter-of-factly. “I still have one of the installations; I paid a lot of money for it after Limelight closed. It’s in my apartment. Makes a great accent piece.” He smiled enigmatically. “I also acquired one of the aluminum tables—but keep that on the DL, please.” The girls stared at him, flummoxed. “There’s Giger Room coins lying around somewhere too,” he added. “They go for a couple hundred on eBay.” 

The lunch line began to move, and Stacy graciously stepped ahead so Laila could fall in place next to Erik. She sensed there was much more to the story than he let on. “So what made you leave the club scene?” she asked. 

“It was time for me to move on,” he said after a moment, looking pained. “And my girlfriend died.” 

Laila paled a little. “What happened?” 

“It was an accident. There was an open elevator shaft at an after-hours party, and she fell.” 

She held back a gasp. “Oh my God, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.” 

He glanced at her pensively. “Maybe you’re too young to have heard of her,” he said solemnly. “Her name was Mistress Luciana.” 

Stacy turned around and gaped. “You dated _Mistress Luciana_?” 

Erik smirked. “I was one of several people she was involved with. We were all on a lot of ecstasy back then, relationships were not traditional.” 

“Wow,” said Stacy. “She’s like a club kid legend.” 

“She certainly is now,” he muttered. He looked over at Laila and sighed ruefully. “Leaves a bit of a bitter taste in your mouth.” 

Laila nodded and swallowed. “I can imagine.” She bore down on him with her eyes. I don’t care who you were before I met you, she prayed silently, just please be the person I think you are now. 

“Let’s talk about something else,” Erik said as they reached the entrance of the cafeteria. “Otherwise I’m going to need another Ativan.” They filed into the cafeteria and went their separate ways at the hot food station. 

Back at the long cafeteria table, Erik was quieter than usual, and Laila gave him a clandestine nudge with her foot. “Are you okay?” she asked. 

“I’m fine,” he responded miserably. He looked down at the half-eaten peanut buttered roll on his tray. “I’m just having a mental breakdown trying to ascertain how much of my past you can handle before you fly off the deep end and run away screaming.” 

“Um, _all of it_ ,” Laila told him. “I hope you realize I’m like, the least judgmental person alive. Who doesn’t have a past?” 

“Boring, repressed people?” he joked. 

The memory of their kiss made her face flush with heat, and she leaned forward ever so slightly. “I like the deep end, Erik,” she said. “It’s where I prefer to swim.” She rubbed the sole of her foot against his. 

“Even if there are predators?” he asked, returning the foot caress under the table. 

“Yes.” 

His eyes sparkled. “You’re a brave girl.” 

She shrugged. “Not brave, necessarily. I just know what I want.” 

He was staring at her lips again. “What do you want?” he asked slowly. 

“To see and be seen for exactly who I am,” she said, “so I can fulfill my purpose.” 

“And what is that?” he questioned. 

“To be a great artist, and render the truth in everything,” she replied softly. “To love and be loved in return.” 

“I see you, Laila,” he told her. Maybe his eyes said something more. 

“I know,” she said, and she smiled. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

On the way back from lunch, Erik explained the details of his arrangement with the nurse. “After smoke break, we get an hour in the rec room,” he told her. “The charge nurse approved it herself.” 

Laila only cared about one thing. “Do we get access to the guitar?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he replied saucily, “and the piano.” 

“Chaperoned or unchaperoned?” 

He tapped his chin. “I’m not sure about that.” 

“God, I miss my bass,” Laila pouted. 

“I miss my synthesizers,” he commiserated, “but it’s better than nothing.” 

“You know, when I was high all the time, I could barely listen to music,” she confessed. “Now I feel like I might die without it.” 

“You’re almost there, Laila,” he said with an encouraging smile. “Just a few more days, and you’ll be free to do whatever you want.” 

A wave of regret passed through her. “I hawked almost all my gear to buy drugs,” she declared. The words tasted bitter in her mouth; just saying them out loud made a pit form in her stomach. “It’s all gone. My Precision bass, my five-string, the Big Muff, all my preamps, everything but Al’s Stingray.” 

“Sweetheart, very soon you’re going to have an entire studio at your disposal. I have everything, and I mean everything, you could possibly want or need. P-bass, jazz bass, some crazy custom Gibsons, a Rickenbacker... and I’m pretty sure Jules has a Stingray. He plays bass too. Between the two of us, we have every effect pedal known to man.” He watched her dab at her eyes. “Don’t cry, okay?” 

She nodded and sniffled. The march had reached its conclusion at the detox unit, and it was time for meds and nicotine. “I’m gonna take care of a couple things,” Erik told her. “Swing by the rec room anytime after two.” 

“I will,” she replied, still blinking away tears. He shot off like a banshee towards the patient rooms and disappeared around the corner, his robe-like black sweater trailing behind him. How on earth did fate deposit this man at my doorstep at the lowest point of my life, she wondered. It was almost enough to make her believe in some kind of divinely ordained plan, something much bigger than herself. She went back to her room and splashed cold water on her face. _He’s a dark angel, exiled from heaven, carrying the light of the sun inside him._ Maybe Uncle Al had sent him. 

The thought made Al’s spirit come alive in her memory. “Every person has a Holy Guardian Angel,” he told her younger self. Like any well-meaning spiritual eccentric, he introduced certain ideas and maxims to her in childhood, sayings he then repeated ad infinitum, attempting to cement them in her psyche for future development. 

“I dream about my angel,” answered child-Laila. “He sings to me.” 

“Always pay attention to your dreams,” instructed Al. “That’s one of the ways our Holy Guardian Angel talks to us.” He leaned towards her with a glint in his eye. “But if you are really diligent about your art, Laila, your angel will speak to you that way. A master magician lets their angel guide and inform them in all things.” 

“I want to be a master magician,” child-Laila said. 

“Then you must get to know your angel,” Al replied. 

Laila dried off her face with the towel and stared herself down in the mirror. She remembered that she left her Marble notebook in the common room, and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten to two; she had just enough time to grab her journal and pop outside for a smoke. She thought hard about what she wanted to play on the guitar, and the portrait she promised to do of Erik. An image began to form and evolve in her mind. The ghost of Al had given her an idea. 

At 1:58, she stubbed out the Marlboro Red she gleaned from Stacy and headed inside for the rec room. “I’m gonna give you two some alone time,” Stacy informed her, “but if he starts singing, all bets are off.” She poked her friend good-naturedly. “See if you can get him to sing something by Justin Timberlake, _please_.” 

Laila shook her head. “You know how he is. I can’t promise anything.” 

“I know,” Stacy grinned. “It was worth a try.” 

When she reached the rec room the door was already cracked open, but she knocked anyway to be polite. “Come in,” called Erik. She went inside and found him sitting on the piano bench, paging through his Marble notebook with all its red musical notations. The guitar was in its case, leaning against the wall next to the piano. 

“No chaperone,” he announced giddily. “They don’t have the staff. The only stipulation is we have to leave the door open.” 

“That’s... surprisingly reasonable,” she replied. 

“Tell me about it.” He watched her gaze travel to the guitar case, and waited for her to move. “Well, Laila,” he snorted, “are you just gonna stand there or are you going to play something?” 

Laila gave him a dirty look and quickly descended upon the guitar like a starving man at a feast. She removed it from the case, walked over to the window, and held it reverently to the light. “I want to play something for you,” she said hesitantly, “if you don’t mind sitting this one out.” She sat down on the sill. 

“Not at all,” Erik answered. He put down the notebook and turned to face her with his full attention. She strummed a couple test chords and made a few tiny adjustments by ear. All around her, the gray light poured through the windows. 

Laila took a deep breath. “Everybody knows ‘Fade Into You’,” she said, “but _this_ is my favorite Mazzy Star song.” She launched into the opening chords of “Be My Angel”. 

_“They say it’s me that makes you do things  
You might not have done if I was away  
And that it’s me that likes to talk to you  
And watches you as you walk away _

_Don’t say it’s useless, don’t say forget it  
Don’t bring me wishes of silly dreams  
Just say there’s often too much freedom  
Too many fingers and too many things _

_They say it’s you that washes the way  
And brings the night into the day  
If you won’t notice, how can I show you  
All of your worries have all gone away _

_Don’t leave me lonely, don’t leave me unhappy  
Just bring me up into your faith  
If you don’t need me then don’t deceive me  
Letting my freedom turn into stone _

_Just be my angel if you love me  
Be my angel in the night  
Be my angel ’cause you need me  
Be my angel and treat me right _

_Don’t say you love me if you don’t need me  
Don’t send me roses on your behalf  
Just take me down and walk through your river  
Down in the middle and make it last _

_Holding on to you, holding on to me  
Holding on tight, ’til my love is crossed  
Don’t say it’s useless and don’t say forget it  
You are my spirit, now you are gone”_

She improvised with some of the parts normally played on the ukulele, adapting them for the guitar in a lower octave, and let the last notes of the ending riff fade into silence before she looked up at Erik. His eyes were as wide as saucers, and upon closer inspection, his mouth was slightly hanging open. 

“Well, Erik?” she smirked. “What do you think?” 

It took him a moment to pull himself together. “Ummm, I think you just gave Hope Sandoval a run for her money,” he declared incredulously. “ _Jesus_ , Laila.” He ran his fingers through his hair. 

She turned bright pink. “Hah, thanks.” 

“Your adaptation was flawless,” he added. “Excellent breath control. I detected a bit of Mr. Reed in there, too.” 

“Thank you,” she beamed, “that was the intention.” 

He sat back on the bench and exhaled loudly. “You should play something else.” 

“I will, if you sing,” she offered. 

“I’ll sing whatever you want, if you sing it with me.” 

She contemplated possibilities. “Is there a capo in that guitar case?” 

He looked over at the case. “I think so.” He plucked the capo out of the bottom and tossed it to her. 

She put the capo over the second fret. “Do you like the Smiths?” she asked. 

He gestured to his all-black attire. “Look at me. What kind of question is that?” 

“The prelude to the next question,” she responded gleefully, and strummed the F# chord. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet. _How soon is now?_ ” 

“Oh shit,” he laughed, and she broke into the beginning of “How Soon Is Now?”. 

“You take the verses,” she told him, and then he opened his mouth and heaven spilled out. 

_“I am the son and the heir  
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar  
I am the son and heir  
Of nothing in particular_

_You shut your mouth  
How can you say  
I go about things the wrong way  
I am human and I need to be loved  
Just like everybody else does_

_I am the son and the heir  
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar  
I am the son and heir  
Of nothing in particular_

_You shut your mouth  
How can you say  
I go about things the wrong way  
I am human and I need to be loved  
Just like everybody else does_

_There’s a club if you’d like to go  
You could meet somebody who really loves you  
So you go and you stand on your own  
And you leave on your own  
And you go home and you cry  
And you want to die_

_When you say it’s gonna happen now  
When exactly do you mean?  
See I’ve already waited too long  
And all my hope is gone_

_You shut your mouth  
How can you say  
I go about things the wrong way  
I am human and I need to be loved  
Just like everybody else does”_

It took serious concentration to play guitar and listen to Erik sing at the same time. Laila never heard anyone so perfectly mimic Morrissey’s minute vocal inflections, gliding faultlessly over the notes like silk and seamlessly transitioning between registers. She doubled down and threw herself into the music, joining in on the last two lines of the chorus. He swung around to the piano to provide a bass line and freestyle the other guitar and ukulele parts, and Laila walked over so they could stay in sync and play off each other. She cried out with joy when he whistled in a flawless imitation of the original track, and he smiled warmly at her. They engaged in some playful back-and-forth between the guitar and piano, starting with the bridge, building upon one another and continuing throughout the last verse and chorus. 

When the song finally trailed off, Laila slumped forward over the guitar. “Oh my God, that was so much fun!” she screamed, stomping her feet with delight. Erik didn’t say anything but appeared doubly satisfied, much like the cat that ate the canary. She reached over the piano and they high-fived each other. 

“You owned that, Erik,” she grinned, panting slightly. 

“I was just working off you, sweetheart,” he winked. 

“Guys,” came an intrusive voice from behind them, “that was great, but if you want to keep playing, you have to bring it out to the nurses’ station.” 

The excitement took an instant nosedive. “We have permission to be in here,” Erik said. 

“I know you do,” replied the attendant in the doorway, “but you can’t be in here alone.” 

“But we have permission,” stammered Laila. “Can’t you just stay here with us?” 

The attendant frowned. “Not enough staff. Bring the guitar out to the nurses’ station and you can keep playing.” 

Erik and Laila looked at each other. He rolled his eyes and she shook her head in tacit agreement. “Go show off your skills, Laila,” he whispered with a bit of heat. 

“Only if you do the same,” she countered. 

“I don’t like playing for an unappreciative audience,” was his rebuttal. 

She nudged his foot with hers. “You’ll be playing for me.”


	11. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

Opening tracks:  
Sublime, “What I Got (Reprise)”, Echo & the Bunnymen, “The Killing Moon”, Korine, “Cast” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It seemed like the entire detox ward was collectively holding its breath as Erik and Laila entered the common room, guitar and bubble-bursting attendant in tow. Stacy saw them coming from her place at the head of the dining room table and threw her hands up in mock celebration. “Finally, you’ve come to entertain us poor plebeians.” 

“Not by choice, I assure you,” Erik muttered at the same instant Laila snapped, “Shut up Stacy.” Her tone was unmistakably upbeat; she was still riding high from their previous duet and couldn’t have stopped smiling if she tried. They breezed by the table and took adjacent seats on the vinyl couch, a respectable distance apart, but close enough for Laila to feel the energy of their spheres overlapping. 

“Any requests?” she asked the room, crossing her legs and repositioning the guitar in her lap. She played a little lick meandering up the neck, adding a few hammer-ons and pull-offs for embellishment. 

Stacy walked over and slid down on the armchair opposite the couch. “Play something everybody knows,” she suggested. “Something... thematic.” 

Laila glanced at Erik, who gave her a slight nod of encouragement, and thought about it. The answer dawned on her slowly. “Okay,” she said, fingers hovering over the frets, “this is one of the first songs I learned by myself on the guitar. I think you’ll all be familiar with it.” She took a deep breath and jumped right in: 

_“Early in the morning, rising to the street  
Light me up that cigarette and I’ll strap shoes on my feet  
Got to find the reason, the reason things went wrong  
Got to find the reason why my money’s all gone  
I got a Dalmatian, I can still get high  
I can play the guitar like a motherfucking riot...”_

The response of the room to Sublime’s “What I Got” was immediate. By the time she hit the short solo before the second verse, patients were gathering to listen on the surrounding furniture. The attentiveness of the audience boosted her confidence and strengthened her voice, and she lost herself in the current of music and joy flowing through her fingers in a perfect balance between total control and absolute freedom. Although she wasn’t consciously aware of it, for the first time in quite a long while, Laila was pain-free. She was pleased to hear a few of the others join in when she reached the chorus, and soared fluidly into the third verse. 

_“Life is too short, so, love the one you got  
’Cause you might get run over, or you might get shot  
Never had to battle with no bullet-proof vest  
Never start static, I get that off my chest  
Take a small example, a tip from me  
Take all of your money, give it all to charity-ty-ty-ty  
Love’s what I got within my reach  
And the Sublime style’s still straight from Long Beach  
It comes back to you, you gonna get what you deserve  
Try and test that, you’re bound to get served  
Love’s what I got, don’t start a riot  
You feel it when the dance gets hot, hot _

_Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that _

_Well, I don’t cry when my dog runs away  
I don’t get angry at the bills I have to pay  
I don’t get angry when my mom smokes pot  
Hits the bottle and goes right to the rock  
Fuck it or fight it, it’s all the same  
Livin’ with Louie Dog’s the only way to stay sane  
Let the lovin’, let the lovin’ come back to me”_

While she vocalized the last line someone hollered and whistled loudly, causing her to blush, but like any consummate professional she quickly regained her composure. The other patients clapped along enthusiastically for the remaining chorus; she could feel the heat of a dozen people watching as she concentrated on nailing the final solo. 

_“Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
Lovin’ is what I got  
I said, remember that  
I got, I got, I got, I got”_

As she let the last few notes trail off, the room resounded with applause, including the staff working behind the counter of the nurses’ station. “Oh my God, you’re _so good!_ ” Stacy shouted, and Laila allowed herself to savor the full glory of the spotlight. It wasn’t something she always got to enjoy by herself, especially as a gigging bassist taking the perpetual backseat to lead and rhythm guitar. When the fanfare died down, she turned to look at Erik. His eyes were bright. 

“You killed it,” he mouthed with a proud smile that made her flush all over again. This time she couldn’t control it at all. 

The moment was over too soon. “Smoke break,” announced the attendant by the courtyard entrance, ready with the keys and cigarettes, and the crowd moved to filter outside. Laila looked down at the guitar and then back at Erik. 

He shrugged and gestured towards the door. “Let’s take this show on the road,” he said. 

Once they relocated to the courtyard, Laila handed the guitar over to Erik and sparked up a donated cigarette. “It’s your turn,” she told him, peering up at him as she took a languorous drag. The nicotine grounded her a little from the heady rush of performing, and she sighed. _I could do this all day..._

Erik settled down on the Victorian bench with the guitar. It had gotten more overcast throughout the day as the sun retreated behind a low blanket of accumulating clouds, casting a blue-gray aura over their surroundings. He glanced up at the sky contemplatively, as if waiting for a sign. 

“I don’t normally play this in front of others because it’s kind of personal,” he finally said, his gaze falling to Laila, “but since we’re going all in here, _fuck it_.” He wrapped his thin elegant hand around the neck of the guitar and leaned into the intro of what she recognized as “The Killing Moon” by Echo & the Bunnymen. 

_“Under a blue moon I saw you  
So soon you’ll take me  
Up in your arms  
Too late to beg you or cancel it  
Though I know it must be the killing time  
Unwillingly mine _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him”_

The denizens of the courtyard froze in perfect time when the first line emerged from his lips, transfixed by the lush, melancholic timbre of his powerful voice tinged with vulnerability. It seemed like the whole world stopped moving in order to listen; Laila couldn’t help but recall the countless scenes in children’s movies in which the Disney princess sings to a captivated audience of animal helpers or the like. She watched his pale nimble fingers dance across the strings, transitioning into the chorus with just the right amount of vibrato. His green eyes flickered to hers as he sang the second verse with a minute smile, imperceptible to everyone but her. 

_“In starlit nights I saw you  
So cruelly you kissed me  
Your lips a magic world  
Your sky all hung with jewels  
The killing moon  
Will come too soon _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him”_

By the time he reached the main solo, Laila had sunk to her knees on the ground. She wasn’t quite sure how she got there, but her cigarette was out and there was ash all over her black jeans. She wiped at her legs haphazardly; it was impossible to take her eyes off Erik’s hands as he glided through the solo, adding a flourish of extra fills that made her mouth drop open slightly at his technical ability. He was as skilled as any of the big-name guitarists she’d idolized growing up, her own uncle included, and it was that moment the thought finally came to her, bursting into consciousness like a flower blooming in the sun— _I’m in love with him_. 

_“Under a blue moon I saw you  
So soon you’ll take me  
Up in your arms  
Too late to beg you or cancel it  
Though I know it must be the killing time  
Unwillingly mine _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him  
You give yourself to him _

_La la la la la la la la la la la la la la  
La la la la la _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him  
You give yourself to him _

_La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la  
La la la la la _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him _

_Fate  
Up against your will  
Through the thick and thin  
He will wait until  
You give yourself to him _

_La la la la la la la la la”_

The song was over, and as Laila returned to herself she realized the experience had turned into another impromptu concert. The whole detox ward was outside, and all around them the windows were packed with patients from the other units, a hundred spellbound witnesses to the scene. A brief awestruck silence followed before the courtyard began to thunder with applause, and the indoor patients rattled the windows and banged on the glass. Erik remained motionless for a while longer before gently bowing his head to the acclamation of his peers. Somehow, the moment managed to retain its strange sense of intimacy. To Laila, it sounded like heaven coming down. 

Gradually, the accolades subsided. She was still trying to piece herself back together alongside the others when Erik got up from the bench and headed inside with the guitar, casting her a very long look as he passed. _To be continued_ , the look said, like a promise. She sat down in a daze to finish her cigarette next to Stacy. 

Stacy tried to speak first but she didn’t get very far. “I just—” 

“ _I know_ ,” Laila finished. There were no words to remotely express what had transpired, and no denying the way she felt about it any longer—the way she felt about _him_. She let herself collapse and cradled her head in her hands. “I’m totally fucked.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Laila retreated to the sanctuary of her room and didn’t come out. She sat for a while with her open notebook, gazing pensively at the bare cinderblock wall instead of the drawing in front of her. Now that she appeared to be fully in touch with her emotions, she was petrified. A current of ecstatic laughter bubbled through her and she shook her head at the ridiculousness of her predicament. Eventually, she gave up on sketching entirely and curled into a ball on her side, hugging the thin blanket around her. 

When mealtime arrived, Stacy came knocking on her door. “Yo Laila,” she called as she let herself in, snickering at the image of her friend coiled beneath the blanket. She walked over to the side of the bed and bent down to get on eye-level. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes,” Laila answered automatically. She burrowed a little deeper into the blanket. “No.” 

Stacy gave the blanket a tug. “Get up, it’s time for dinner.” 

They went out into the front hallway, where the line for the cafeteria was forming. The other patients came up to Laila eagerly, filling her ears with phrases like, “You’re so talented,” “Girl, you can shred,” “Thank you for doing Brad Nowell justice,” and so on—all of which she received with a polite, distracted smile, searching for Erik out of the corner of her eye. 

Stacy knew what she was thinking. “He’s probably back in his cave,” she told Laila. “He might not come out until tomorrow.” 

By the time the group reached the cafeteria, it became apparent the entire hospital was talking about the concert. “Did you hear that guy singing?” whispered an excited pair of nurses coming down the corridor in the opposite direction. 

“My catatonic patient cried,” the second nurse responded. “It was unreal.” 

“I’ve never heard anything like it,” gushed the first. “ _Who is he?_ ” 

Laila hid a smile behind her hand as she passed. He’s _mine_ , she thought selfishly. 

On the way through the food stations, Laila collected as many dinner rolls and peanut butter packets she could fit on her tray. “Whatcha got there?” Stacy asked as they sat down, indicating Laila’s surplus. 

“A bribe,” Laila replied. She had nabbed a grilled cheese for herself but was having trouble eating. When it came time to leave, she tossed it in the trash. 

“You can’t bring all that food back to the unit,” said the attendant at the door, wise to their game. It was the same sour-faced attendant who had been spoiling their fun all day. “Only what you can carry on your person.” 

Laila and Stacy exchanged a glance in unspoken agreement. Between the two of them, they packed the majority of the load into their pockets. The central pocket of Laila’s hoodie was large enough to fit all the dinner rolls. “Is this acceptable to you?” she asked scornfully, shooting daggers with her eyes at the attendant. 

The attendant muttered something about a fan club. Plainly, he was not a member. “Go on,” was the gruff reply. 

Back on the detox unit, the girls headed for room 5. Stacy backed off when they reached the door, which was closed. “Uh, you knock,” she said. 

Laila was unperturbed and knocked without hesitation. “Hey, Erik,” she called out. She paused before knocking a couple more times. “Open up.” 

Erik opened the door. The room was dark behind him. He was calm and quiet, and Laila realized he might have been meditating—or sleeping. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “We have something for you.” 

Erik considered her for a moment and took a step back into the room, inviting her in. “Perhaps I have something for you,” he responded warmly, matching her intonation as he flicked the light switch. 

It didn’t take long to dump the contents of their pockets onto the end of the bed. Erik watched the process unfold with a mixture of gratitude, embarrassment, and disbelief. When they were finished, he seemed to struggle for words. Laila threw down the extra plastic knives stashed at the very bottom of her hoodie. “You missed dinner,” she said flatly, not bothering to disguise her disappointment. 

He colored a bit beneath the mask. “Thank you both,” he eventually replied, clearly unaccustomed to this level of caregiving. 

Stacy glanced at her wristwatch. It was just about time for meds and a hasty strategic exit. “Well, I’m gonna go get my drugs,” she declared, winking at Laila. “See y’all later.” 

They both turned to watch her go; the door latched shut behind her. “So,” Laila mumbled, fidgeting when her eyes met Erik’s. The fact that they were alone again caused the gravitational pull to shift. “You said you had something for me.” 

“Oh, right,” he answered dreamily, as if he had already forgotten. He reached into his pocket and pulled out something hidden in his palm. “Give me your hand,” he said. 

Laila’s arm extended before her brain consciously registered the request. Lightly, he cupped her hand and deposited something small and sharp in her palm, curling her fingers around it with his own. She slowly opened her hand. “What is it?” she asked, running her fingertips over what looked like a mangled paper clip. 

“Keys to the proverbial kingdom,” Erik said magnanimously. “Now you have access to the guitar and rec room whenever you want.” 

The overt symbolism of this gift struck a chord with Laila. He’s letting me in, she thought, overwhelmed by the depth of her feelings. “Thank you Erik,” she whispered. _Thank you God, thank you Al, thank you angels and all the powers-that-be._

“We’d better get out of here,” he told her, watching the flurry of emotions play across her face with regret. He folded the makeshift key back up in her hand, circling his thumb along the outside of her palm. The sight and sensation of their hands entangled made him hesitate. “Not that I don’t want to... um... stay.” He traced a finger over her wrist and tried to rationalize with himself. “I need to keep a low profile.” 

Laila broke into a grin. “I’m not sure that’s possible,” she said. She was practically glowing. “The whole hospital is talking about you.” 

He snorted. “That’s what I was afraid of.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Erik had a rough go with the attention he received throughout the rest of the evening. It started as soon as he got on line for meds. “I won’t sing anything else,” he announced after being bum-rushed by several patients. He ducked behind Laila as she popped her second dose of Suboxone by the counter. “I’m sorry, but _please don’t ask_.” 

It was funny to watch him squirm after witnessing the reverse so many times. “How’s it feel to be a psych ward celebrity?” she teased as they walked into the common area. 

“Living the dream,” he answered sarcastically, pulling the oversized hood of his sweater up over his head. He spun around and sat down on the couch in a huff. 

She laughed and plopped down on the opposite end. “If this is living the dream, I’d hate to see your nightmares.” 

“You most certainly would,” he retorted. 

“Mine aren’t much better,” she acquiesced. She stared down at their hands lying parallel to each other, only a few inches apart, then over at the deck of playing cards on the table. “Maybe I should give Solitaire a try.” 

He flashed her a lopsided smirk. “I’ll leave the light on for you,” he offered dryly. 

“No need,” she said. “I prefer the dark.” 

They watched the other patients form a bottleneck at the courtyard door, antsy for the hundredth smoke break of the day. Soon all the smokers were outside and the common room was empty. Laila made the executive decision to stay put. She could feel Erik’s smolder settle on her. “I’m genuinely curious,” he whispered across the couch. “What’s a beautiful girl like you know about the _dark_?” He let the last word roll off his tongue, a challenge wrapped in silk and velvet with a razor’s gleaming edge. 

“Enough,” she responded, a little defensively. She took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his gaze head-on. “Enough to know that darkness is a teacher. I admit, I’m not always fond of the lessons.” 

Erik tapped the side of his mouth with a long tapered finger. “You and me both,” he purred agreeably. He bore down, devouring her with his eyes, to the point that she felt stripped bare. “You know what they say, Laila...” He leaned closer. “The brightest light casts the darkest shadows.” 

“Oh, I’ve seen them,” she replied, unable to move or do anything other than answer from the depths of her soul. “I used to work in a dungeon. I embodied them.” There—it was out in the open and she couldn’t take it back. 

Erik was unfazed. “Laila,” he said, his voice incredibly soft, “you _are_ one.” 

“Which one?” she asked, fixing her vision on the lily-white column of his throat. “The light or the shadow?” 

He smiled at her then, a rare full-toothed smile that revealed his remarkably pointed canines. “Both.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Saturday night wrapped up with the usual twelve-step meeting. Goals group aside, it was the only hospital-sanctioned instance of therapy that had taken place all day. It’s all relative, Laila thought as the patients filed into the classroom for the meeting. Personally, she had gotten more out of playing music with Erik for an hour than going to groups all week. I can keep the momentum going, she assured herself, taking a seat by the windows. When I get out of here, that’s all I’m going to do—I’ll stay awake every night if I have to, barricade myself in my room and bolt the door. She snuck a stealthy glance at Erik as he sauntered by and took a seat across the circle. _And maybe, God willing, this won’t be the last of my collaborations with the OG._ She wasn’t sure when she had started abbreviating this nickname of his in her head, but it fit no matter how she delineated it—Opera Ghost, Original Gangster, Old-school Goth, Otherworldly Guardian, Orphic Genius. He embodied every iteration while simultaneously eschewing definition by the whole. It was a liminal quality Uncle Al would have appreciated. 

The meeting ran over, due to the main speaker arriving ten minutes late. By the time the door burst open and the patients erupted into the hallway, Laila was ready to scream. She was acutely aware she hadn’t smoked a cigarette for several hours. “Was that as bad for you as it was for me?” she asked Stacy as they left. 

“Worse,” Stacy told her. “I had to watch you two make eyes at each other from across the room.” 

Laila scoffed. “Oh, come on.” 

“It’s true,” Stacy grinned. She hesitated for a moment, uncertain about volunteering the next piece of information. “You know, there’s a betting pool going on over how long you guys can keep this up.” 

Laila stopped short in the hallway, visibly shook. “What in the actual _fuck_ ,” she fumed. 

“It’s pretty entertaining,” Stacy confessed. “Like watching a star go supernova.” 

“That process takes millions of years,” Laila glowered. 

“In that case, thanks for the front-row seat.” 

“You’re welcome,” she grumbled. They reached the attendant with the box of cigarettes. “I’ll take one of hers,” she coolly informed the attendant. 

The cigarette did a more than substantial job soothing Laila’s nerves. I really don’t care what anyone thinks, she thought on her way back inside. Let them place their bets, let the staff try to separate us—this thing is way bigger than anyone can fathom. She changed into her pajamas and spent a good ten minutes washing the makeup off her face. Refreshed and scrubbed clean of the day’s residue, she got on line for her nightly dose of Vistaril. Bedtime was a whole hour later on Saturdays, but no one seemed to care, because the common room was deserted. 

_Nearly_ deserted. There was a game of Solitaire laid out on the coffee table, and someone was watching _The Silence of the Lambs_ on TV in the far corner. 

“Erik!” Laila was surprised to discover it was him, almost entirely obscured within his black velour robe. He scooted over on the loveseat to make room for her. “I love this movie,” she said as she sat down. They weren’t too far into it—Hannibal Lecter was in the middle of his seminal meeting with Senator Martin. 

“Me too,” he agreed. 

“My parents wouldn’t let me rent it when I was a kid,” she told him, putting her feet up on the table like his. “It was a source of great contention in our household. Thankfully Al was there to sneak me his copy of the novel.” 

Erik was amused. “The book’s a thousand times more graphic than the movie,” he pointed out. 

“Oh, I know,” she grinned. “My dad was so pissed when he found out.” 

“Have you read the sequel, _Hannibal_?” he asked. 

She shook her head. “I only saw the movie in theaters.” 

Erik studied her closely for a moment. “You should read the book,” he replied. “It’s a lot better than the movie.” 

“I always thought the ending was a cop-out,” she said, shifting a micron closer on the couch. She buried her hands in the extra long sleeves of her hoodie. “They should have wound up together, Hannibal and Clarice. Fuck the haters.” She infused this statement with a little more vehemence than necessary. 

“Then you _really_ need to read the book,” he amended with a small smile. 

“I will,” she told him, and sincerely meant it. 

They continued watching the film in silence, with only the occasional glance from a passing nurse to ensure propriety. Catherine Martin failed to lure Buffalo Bill’s dog into the well, and Clarice Starling made her way to Dr. Lecter’s holding cell in Memphis. It was Laila’s favorite part—the verbal dance between like minds, the _quid pro quo_ and rapid exchange of wit, insight, and painful memories. Not unlike me and Erik, she mused, sizing him up from the side. He was as close as he could get without touching her, with a long arm draped over the back of the couch. 

“Nobody sent me,” Clarice told Dr. Lecter on the screen. “I came on my own.” 

“People will say we’re in love,” Lecter sneered. 

Laila was at the point of no return. She inched towards him until finally, at the pivotal moment when Lecter handed Clarice the file and their fingers touched through the bars of his cage, she nestled into the crook of Erik’s shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her. Neither spoke, moved, or took their eyes off the screen, as though any further deviation would invite scrutiny on the part of their watchers, but timing had worked out for the best: the staff changed shifts at 11pm and there were no witnesses. She felt the flood of exhilarated heat travel to her face. Now it was hard to pay attention. Lecter executed his bloody and daring escape, Bach’s _Goldberg Variations_ blaring, and Laila realized Erik was tapping along to the aria with his free hand. She smiled and snuggled a little closer. They got all the way to the part when Clarice came face to face with Buffalo Bill before Erik leaned over and whispered in Laila’s ear. “This is really nice,” he murmured, his breath hot. She closed her eyes as the mask brushed gently against her hair and imagined his lips on her neck. 

But the third shift crew was making rounds, and this was the moment caught by a young attendant as he walked by to lock up the laundry room. The warm bubble of tranquility and desire evaporated instantly, and Laila braced herself for the inevitable. 

On the way back, the attendant stopped to lecture them. “I’m not going to lecture you,” he declared with a hand on his hip. 

Erik’s arm was still around her, transformed into a gesture of defiance. “Okay,” he said dully, in a tone that made her stifle a giggle. 

The attendant looked them up and down and shook his head. “Just _behave_ , please.” 

“We’re behaving,” Erik said, but the upturned corner of his mouth indicated otherwise. Reluctantly, he took back his arm. 

“Alright,” responded the attendant, sounding weary. “Be aware that we see everything.” He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s time to shut down for the night.” 

They both groaned. “Can we at least finish the movie?” pleaded Laila. “Please? It’s almost over.” 

The attendant was done arguing. “Five minutes,” he said as he walked away. 

It was a euphoric, dubious victory. As Buffalo Bill stalked Clarice Starling in his basement, Laila carefully laid her hand next to Erik’s. By the time Clarice killed him, their pinkies were overlapping. Erik released a very long, drawn-out sigh. 

“Nighty night, guys,” announced the attendant who hit the power button on the side of the TV, cutting off the last few lines of Lecter’s final phone conversation with Clarice. 

They turned to look at each other. “That was close enough, I guess,” said Laila. 

Erik gave her the once-over. “Oh, I disagree,” he countered in a sultry voice. He wasn’t talking about the movie. 

“Well,” said Laila, “we’ll have to pick back up where we left off another time.” She felt a feverish wave crash over her, like she was high on ecstasy. 

Erik shut his eyes and slowly opened them. They were riding the same wave. “You got it,” he breathed. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Author’s note:  
And... we’re back! I hope everyone enjoyed this update, because the waters are going to get choppy in the next chapter (out in 1-2 weeks). In the meantime, check out The Thirteenth Step collages at <https://imgur.com/a/wT1f7Fy>. They were super fun to make, and I’m still making more.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

“Well, you come in, baby, you will get burned  
’Cause I am just what I am, I’ve learned”  
\- The Dandy Warhols 

Opening tracks:  
Slick Idiot, “Xcess”, VAST, “Here I Am”, The Strokes, “Bad Decisions”, The Dandy Warhols, “(You Come In) Burned” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The next morning arrived too early, with all the subtlety of a bullet to the brain. “Time for vitals,” barked the nurse who stood silhouetted in the doorway. The harsh fluorescent light spilled in from the hall, rendering the room’s occupants temporarily blind. As a result, Laila stubbed her toe when she got out of bed. _Fuck!_

It’s Sunday, she thought as she rubbed her injured toe and hobbled to the common room. Only a few more days of this nonsense, and I’m _free_. The word had taken on near-mythic proportions over the last week: free to sleep as late as possible and play music as long or loud as she pleased, free to drink in the sky at dawn, eat real food and smoke at will, free to love whoever she wanted—fuck whoever she wanted. Naturally, there was only one man suitable to the task, and she wasn’t allowed to touch him. 

In the shower she really took the time to lather up, letting her own hands slowly transverse the curves of her hips and glide down the smooth, silky valley of her thighs. There’s nothing seedier than touching yourself in the shower of a mental institution, she grimaced, and pushed the thought away. _They’re not my fingers, they’re Erik’s._ She could feel him teasing her, probing and provoking her with those insatiable green eyes and that wicked, smart, sensual mouth. She did her best not to touch any of the shower walls as she closed her eyes and leaned forward, biting her lip and imagining the feats his strong, skeletal hands were capable of. A man who effortlessly shred the guitar and owned the ivories like a boss was bound to be equally skilled in similarly applicable areas. She flashed back to the fire of her dreams and suppressed a grunt in the accelerated frenzy. _He’s the one I’ve been waiting for. God, let it happen._ She barreled down, pausing only to punch the tap when it stopped every thirty seconds, and rode the spiral all the way to the top of her spine. Quietly, she cried out his name as light poured from from her crown and broke over her in pulses, a pure white wave. 

I’m officially going to hell, she burned guiltily on the way back to her room, hair dripping all over the floor. Even if I’ve already been there. 

She got dressed and borrowed Patricia’s blowdryer, then poked her head in Stacy’s room to glean the liquid eyeliner. “Ooh, let me do it,” Stacy crooned. She got to work at once, enveloping her friend in a perfumed cloud of bubblegum and fastidious attention. When she was done, she clapped her hands with delight. “You are gonna slay,” she declared, steering Laila in front of the mirror to examine her flawless winged eyeliner. “What do you think?” 

“It’s perfect,” Laila said. “You’re a godsend.” 

Stacy popped her gum. “I do what I can,” she winked. “Now let me do the rest.” Laila knew better than to protest. She sat back and let the master work: foundation and powder, hot pink eyeshadow on her lids, two coats of mascara, a dab of blush, and shimmery nude lipstick. It took about twenty minutes to complete and was worth every second; Laila felt like a pop princess valkyrie by the time Stacy was done. She finished off by pulling the top half of Laila’s hair into an elaborate braid and added tiny accent braids throughout the rest. It lent her a fierce and exotic edge, with all the technicolor drama of a neon pink tribal priestess. 

“Holy hell, you’re good,” she told her friend when she saw the final product. 

“You’re ready for anything now,” Stacy said, fully satisfied with her efforts. 

“I hope so,” Laila replied warily. 

“I know so.” Stacy put her hands on her hips and wiggled her eyebrows. “Now go make Erik’s jaw hit the floor.” 

Was she ready for anything? For some reason, the sentiment made Laila uneasy. What the hell is going to happen today, she wondered as she poured herself some coffee and floated outside for the first cigarette of the day. The air was humid and cool, almost oppressively heavy, and there was no sun to speak of. I’m not the only one who feels it, she decided, watching the early smokers shuffle glumly around the courtyard. She took a large gulp of coffee and immediately regretted it; the brew was especially burnt that morning and it scalded the roof of her mouth. 

“Looks like rain,” commented Patricia. “There’s a tropical storm coming in.” 

“The storm’s already here,” Laila muttered, half to herself. In retrospect, this was an understatement: she had absolutely no idea how bad things were going to get. 

At the end of the line for breakfast in the cafeteria, she ran into Erik. “Good morning,” she said shyly as she walked up behind him. 

He turned around to say hello, and then he looked at her. While his jaw didn’t hit the ground, it did go slightly ajar. “Wow,” he gaped, staring dumbly for a few seconds before he promptly caught himself. A devilish smile played across his lips. “Good morning, Laila!” he proclaimed, slightly louder than appropriate for the given situation. 

Laila instantly grew ten times more self-conscious. “Stacy is insanely talented,” she demurred, attempting to downplay the glow-up. 

There was a glimmer in Erik’s eyes. “Stacy is good,” he replied huskily, the black saucers of his pupils burrowing into hers, “but _you_ are insanely stunning.” The words melted into her ears like honey and she melted along with them. 

“I, uh... thank you,” she stammered, gazing up into his green inferno, the blood thrumming furiously throughout her body. 

He grinned at her. “I’d kiss your hand, if I could.” 

“Hurry it up back there!” yelled the attendant in front. The breakfast line had started to move without them, and they ran to catch up. With a heavy heart, Laila watched the attendant step off to the side and let the rest of the group pass. When she and Erik got there, he jumped on line directly behind them, making any real conversation impossible. God, I hate that guy, she agonized. She didn’t even know his name. 

The scenario did not improve in the cafeteria. The attendant stationed himself at one of the smaller tables directly adjacent to their seats, a silent observer prepared to bring reckoning down swiftly and totally for any breaches in protocol. Laila glared at him and stirred more sugar into her coffee. His very presence was agitating. She knocked into the flimsy styrofoam cup with the side of her hand, spilling coffee all over her tray. “Motherfucker,” she cursed. 

Erik looked like he felt sorry for her. “Here,” he said, throwing down his stash of extra napkins. Their hands nearly intersected as they blotted up the liquid. 

Laila was shaken. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she murmured, staring down miserably at her sticky-sweet mess. 

He quirked a brow beneath the mask. “Perhaps it’s time to strategize an exit,” he offered quietly. 

She conjured an epic escape scene in her head that ended with them riding victoriously into the sunset. “Wanna jump the fence later?” It was intended to be a joke but came out an earnest question. 

“Believe me, nothing would please me more,” he replied dryly. “You’re on the last day of your taper, correct?” 

“Yep.” 

“It would be wise for you to finish that,” he told her. “Dr. Reed should be back tomorrow morning and I’m sure she’d sign off on a discharge. Legally, they can’t keep either of us here. We could leave... together.” His eyes met hers, full of promise and hope and something else, equally powerful and unspoken. 

Laila felt herself sweat. “I would like that,” she whispered softly, succumbing to tunnel vision. The world around her pixelated and fell away, crumbling to dust. 

“Monday,” Erik assured her with a nod. There was a note of finality in his voice, like he was speaking the future into existence. 

“Monday,” she echoed, and they both smiled. 

Meds followed breakfast, and cigarettes followed meds. The strange weather had picked up, getting progressively darker and wilder, and the tops of the trees danced and tossed frantically in the wind. It was drizzling, so Laila smoked close to the courtyard door to avoid ruining Stacy’s handiwork. All she could think about was leaving the hospital with Erik. Maybe I’ll get to see his studio, she gushed. I’m going to have to stop home and grab my bass. She imagined the conversation with her father: _Dad, this is Erik. He wears a mask and I met him in rehab, and I’m running off to New York City now so we can make music together and live happily ever after._

Well, there was no point in worrying; she’d cross that bridge when she got there. 

In goals group, she couldn’t help but allude to the plan. “I need to figure out my life plan after discharge,” she told the counselor. “I’m going to do the IOP here, and I guess I’ll look for a job so eventually I can get my own place. I’ve been thinking about teaching kids and giving private lessons.” 

“One thing at a time,” the counselor decreed. “Let’s get back to basics first. Have you lined up any meetings to attend in your area?” 

“Uh,” said Laila, caught off guard. She hadn’t given much thought to the twelve steps lately, or sponsorship, or sobriety for that matter. 

The room was silent. “Any suggestions for Laila?” the counselor asked the circle. 

“There’s a good one every Wednesday afternoon at the Presbyterian Church,” Manny volunteered, flashing her a sympathetic smile. “It’s walking distance from the hospital. When I did the IOP, most of us went to it after group.” 

“Excellent idea, Manny,” said the counselor, and Laila thanked him with her eyes. She was pretty sure he was the one who hollered and whistled when she played Sublime the previous day. 

Erik’s goals were a little different. He had vanished after morning meds to receive a phone call, and returned looking ragged. “Ayesha bit something and broke a tooth last night, and there were complications,” he told the room. “Jules, my assistant, had to take her to the hospital.” He squeezed the sides of his temples and sighed. “My goal for today is to find a babysitter.” 

“Oh my, that’s unfortunate. Ayesha is your daughter?” asked the counselor. 

Laila entertained a brief burst of panic— _he didn’t tell me he had a daughter_. It wasn’t a deal-breaker; it was the omission that bothered her. 

“In a manner of speaking,” said Erik, clearly amused. “Ayesha is my cat.” 

On the way out of group, he approached her. “Will you still be looking for a job tomorrow?” he asked. “Do you like cats?” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The storm grew more intense. Laila watched it descend quickly and totally like a monsoon, blackening the sky, drenching the courtyard, and beating hard and heavy against the glass. She sat sketching at one end of the dining room table while a handful of the others played poker. Laila didn’t know how to play, so it was easier to watch. 

Over by the nurses’ station, Erik was engaged in a dispute with the nurse. “I need to make a phone call,” he demanded, drumming his fingers on the counter. 

The nurse shot him a skeptical look over the top of her glasses. “Mr. Dupuis, you already monopolized the line for a half-hour this morning.” 

“That was fifteen minutes, tops,” he retorted. “I have an urgent personal matter that requires attention. I have— _child care issues_.” He stared her down expectantly. 

“I am sympathetic to your need,” said the nurse, “but we can’t let you use the phone all day.” She passed him the phone through the window, along with its twenty-foot extension cable. “One more call, and you’re cut off. Make it quick.” 

“Fair enough,” Erik grumbled. He stretched out the extension cord as far as it would go and disappeared around the corner into the hallway. By the time he was done with the phone, the first round of poker was over. With a weary grace he waltzed over to the dining area, took the seat adjacent to Laila, and put his head down on the table, burying his masked face in his arms. 

Laila waited for him to move. “Did you figure it out?” she asked when he didn’t. 

He turned his head to look at her. “Temporarily,” he said. “She’s back home now. They had to pull her upper canines, both of them.” He clicked his tongue and exhaled sharply, as though the idea offended him. “My engineers are alternating feeding duties between them, and Jules and his girlfriend are going to stay overnight and watch her.” 

“Well, it sounds like she’s a very beloved cat,” remarked Laila. She was almost jealous. 

“She’s very naughty.” Erik grabbed a fistful of his hair. “She takes after me.” 

“Either of you want in on round two?” called Manny from down the table as he shuffled the cards. 

Laila shook her head, but Erik gave the offer some consideration. A well-timed flash of lightning illuminated the table through the long courtyard windows. “You don’t want me to play poker,” he growled, a low roll of thunder punctuating his reply. “Trust me.” 

Manny threw his hands up in deference. “Suit yourself.” 

Laila giggled. The scene was straight out of a B-horror movie. “You are truly something else,” she told Erik with a disdainful grin. 

“What?” he scoffed. “I’m looking out for everyone else here. I don’t play poker anymore, as a rule.” 

“Why’s that?” 

He leaned towards her. “I made a lot of money playing poker when I was younger, a _lot_ of money. Pool too. I used to frequent the back rooms in Yonkers and clean house on the weekends, back when you could do that sort of thing. That was before I found out gambling and risk-tasking were symptoms of mania.” 

“So you _were_ a hustler,” Laila breathed. “I knew it!” 

He shrugged lackadaisically. “I did it for a couple years and then I got tired of it. Burned a few too many bridges. It was fun when I was nineteen.” 

“What’d you do after that?” 

“Programming, contracting,” he replied vaguely. “I was lucky to have a mentor who helped me keep my head on straight.” 

“Was that Nadir?” 

Erik shook his head. “I didn’t meet Nadir until I moved overseas. His name was Giovanni.” He hesitated for a second. “He helped me build my first house.” 

“Oh,” Laila said, trying to digest all this information. “You build houses?” 

“Well, yeah.” He smiled at her. “Who do you think built the studio?” 

“Is there anything you don’t do?” she asked. 

“Good question. I don’t make a habit of falling for pretty Berklee girls who play bass,” he teased, “yet here we are.” 

“Ms. Ward?” A nurse approached their end of the table. 

“Yes?” said Laila automatically. 

The nurse looked from Laila to Erik and back. There was an unquantifiable element in her voice. “Dr. Russo wants to see you.” 

The doctor was hiding out in an examination room on the far side of the detox unit. Laila walked there slowly, with leaden feet and no small amount of personal dread. She stood outside the room for a good ten seconds before knocking on the door. 

“Come in,” called the doctor, glancing at her and then down at the corresponding chart. “Ah yes, Ms. Ward.” He scrutinized her with beady, close-set eyes, in a way that made Laila feel like she was shrinking. 

The meeting started out innocently enough: the doctor completed a short physical exam and gave her the results of her bloodwork. Laila was relieved to find out she was negative of STDs and blood-borne pathogens. “Your pupils are slightly dilated,” the doctor noted. “That may simply be a side effect of the antidepressant.” 

Laila smirked. _Or a side effect of Erik._

“Now Laila,” the doctor said, removing his glasses. He put her chart down on the stainless steel counter and placed his large beefy hands on his thighs. Laila stared at them like they could smother her before she looked away. “I understand you’ve become quite close to one of the other patients during your time here.” 

She turned beet-red. “Uh, I guess,” she mumbled, shifting uncomfortably. 

He gave her a pointed look. “I know being in detox is tough,” he pressed. “You’re raw and vulnerable and coming out of a fog, and all of a sudden you’re locked up with twenty other people who are also raw and vulnerable, people who are _uniquely primed_ to understand your pain.” He spread his hands in the air. “Attractions happen.” 

“Okay...” Laila swallowed to offset the pit forming in her stomach, but it did nothing to alleviate her fear. 

“That being said,” the doctor continued, “becoming romantically involved with another addict while you’re in recovery is not a good idea.” He paused. “Do you know why?” 

She took a quick breath. “Because one of us could relapse?” 

“That is a definite risk and a distinct possibility,” the doctor agreed, “and I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you—it happens all the time, even to people as brilliant and musically gifted as Mr. Dupuis. _Especially_ people like Mr. Dupuis, who think they are exempt from the rules.” The words made her cringe, and he softened his tone. “You need to focus on yourself, Laila. The rest of it is only a distraction from the real work you have to do, which is in here.” He motioned towards his chest. 

He’s not lying, Laila reflected, but I still don’t believe him. He doesn’t know what I know, deep in my bones. She took a minute to craft her response. “I respect what you’re saying,” she said carefully, “and I appreciate you looking out for me. I understand why you think it’s not a good idea.” 

The doctor waited for more, but she didn’t give it to him and he seemed disappointed. “It’s not just _not_ a good idea,” he told her plainly. “It’s a bad decision.” 

Laila gazed longingly at the door. “Good or bad, it’s my decision,” she said, and gathered the strength to look him in the eyes. “I know you don’t believe in exceptions, but I do. You don’t know him.” 

This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. “I know everything I need to know,” snapped the doctor. “Mr. Dupuis has an extensive history of involvement in criminal enterprises, violence, drug abuse, and mental illness that has gone largely untreated. You’re the one who doesn’t know him, Ms. Ward. The only things you know are what he has deigned to share with you.” He lowered his voice a little. “He’s a ticking time-bomb. Listen to me: don’t just walk away, you need to _run_.” 

That was it, she couldn’t listen to another word. “If you’re done with my follow-up exam,” she glowered, “I’d like to leave.” 

Now the doctor was desperate. “He’s using you,” he declared as she stood and went for the door. “He’s using you because you’re new and vulnerable and you don’t know any better. You’re going to get hurt, and then you’ll relapse.” 

Laila turned to face him one last time. “I can make my own judgment call,” she sneered. 

“Stay away from him,” pleaded the doctor, and she slammed the door. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Erik knew there was something wrong as soon as Laila walked back into the room. The hurt and tension were etched across her face. He watched her drift over to the couch and collapse face-down onto the vinyl cushions, where she declined to move. A protective surge raced through him, followed by a dizzy wave of apprehension, and he gripped the edge of his seat to shift the focus back to his breathing. Vulnerability was the price of letting her in, he reminded himself, and there was no going back. He had given her the key. He wanted to give her so much more. 

This was going to require delicate maneuvering on his part, with so many eyes watching and presumably rooting for his downfall. While the specifics were unclear, one thing was certain: Laila’s visit with the doc hadn’t gone well. Erik ran through the numbers; odds were ten-to-one the discussion involved him, and unlike the other 99% of his interactions with humanity, he cared what she thought about him. 

He really, _really_ cared. 

“Your draw, Erik,” Manny interjected, bringing his attention back to the table. The poker game had ended after a bypasser with gambling issues got triggered, but the group reached a compromise and agreed to play Gin rummy instead. Somehow, out of boredom, no doubt, and what was possibly a genuine need to connect with his peers, Erik got roped in. It was a deep character flaw—he always got roped in. 

“I fold,” he announced blithely, laying down his cards. The rest of the table dissolved into groans. 

“You can’t quit, we just dealt you in,” protested Phil. 

“An offer I repeatedly refused,” replied Erik. “Excuse me.” He got up from the table in one swift motion and headed for the couch. Phil waved him off, grumbling as he moved to shuffle and redistribute the cards. He was in tune with the finer dynamics at work here, and it was a lost cause when it came to _those two_. 

Erik circled the couch, swooping in with the calculated poise of a hawk. He snatched up the extra pack of playing cards and took a seat on the armchair across from Laila. With a leisurely affectation he shuffled the cards back and forth between his hands in a precise, hypnotic cascade. The act was therapeutic; familiar repetitive movement made him feel more in control of the situation, and the cards obeyed his every whim. All it took was a little concentration and a dash of finesse, and he executed a series of complicated tricks in fluid succession. The sound of the cards fanning the air made Laila look up as he finished. “Whoa,” she said. 

Erik hummed as the cards flowed backwards into a neat rectangle in his palm. “Laila, Laila,” he sang in a light, breezy voice. He laid the cards on the table and gazed at her with kind, imploring eyes. “What happened?” 

She extracted herself groggily from the surface of the couch. “Ever feel like everyone’s out to get you?” she asked, running her hands over her Viking hair to make sure the braid was intact. 

“All the time,” he answered frankly. “I’m genuinely surprised when it doesn’t happen.” 

“Hah,” she snorted. She straightened herself out and swung her feet onto the floor. “I’m so fucking done with this place.” 

“What you need is a little diversion.” Erik swept up the cards once more and shuffled them rapidly in the air. “Pick three cards,” he told her, spreading the deck into a wide fan on the coffee table, “and I’ll tell you your future.” 

“You read cards?” she asked. “Don’t you need, like, tarot cards?” 

“You can use playing cards,” Erik said. “Really, you can use anything. Before the days of cards, they read tea leaves and animal entrails.” 

Laila made a face. “Let’s stick with the cards,” she replied, and waved her fingers hesitantly over the deck. “You know, my uncle read tarot. I still have his deck at home. It’s beautiful—full color, trippy art deco-style illustrations.” 

“Sounds like the Thoth tarot,” he informed her. “Any magician worth their salt has it.” 

She was hovering over a card and stopped mid-air to gawk at him. “How do _you know_ he was a magician?” she whispered. 

Erik grinned and shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious, given everything you’ve told me. We’re quite adept at sniffing out our own kind.” 

“Then you must know the rules,” she intoned with wide, awestruck eyes. “Al taught them to me. _To know, to will, to dare_ —” 

“ _And to keep silent_ ,” Erik finished, holding a finger to his lips. “I know them, Laila.” He got a pleasurable rush from the shock in her expression. “I would love to continue talking about this in depth, and we will,” he confided in a low melodious tone, “but we shouldn’t do it here.” 

Laila looked like she was going to cry. “Promise?” she asked as her voice cracked. “My whole life I’ve been trying to piece together the mystery of who he was; all I ever got was bits and pieces. My parents don’t like to talk about it. After he died they threw out all his books and journals, like they were trying to erase him. My dad’s like, a hardcore pragmatist—he said Al had a negative influence on me. I’ll never forgive him for that.” 

He so badly wanted to reach across the table and comfort her. “I promise,” he swore solemnly, watching the tears glisten like embers in her dark lashes. He looked down at the table. “Pick a card, sweetheart.” 

She broke into nervous laughter. “I'm afraid to now,” she confessed. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly. With a shaky breath, she picked three cards out of the fanned pile and turned to him for instruction. “Flip them over,” he guided, and she did. 

It wasn’t the best spread, that was for certain— _two of spades, seven of clubs, queen of spades_ —but Erik was prepared to spin things if he had to. He glossed over it mentally as he scooped up the remaining cards. “Well?” Laila asked. 

Erik folded the rest of the deck back into its box. “Each card represents a position in the past, present, and future. Your past is two of spades, or swords; naturally, twos symbolize duality, a decision or a choice you had to make, often between virtue and vice. They can also represent a hesitation or an impasse.” He looked her up and down. “I’d say that’s pretty on point.” She nodded mutely, so he continued. “Seven of clubs, or wands, in the present indicates anxiety or defensiveness. You’re going to be challenged, possibly caught by surprise, so you have to stand your ground.” He paused. “You may have to fight for what you believe in.” 

“Okay,” said Laila, “go on.” 

“Queen of spades, or swords, in the future.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re going to come out on top, just like the queen, but not without suffering first.” 

Her face turned sour. “Great,” she muttered. 

“You _will_ be great, and wise beyond your years,” he countered gently. “The queen of swords reveals the truth in everything, and like you, she does not suffer fools lightly—but she knows there is no coming to consciousness without pain.” 

They were startled by a loud rumble that caused most of the room to look up abruptly, but it wasn’t the storm outside. It was the burly attendant wheeling in the lunch truck. “Put the cards away, guys,” he shouted at the dining table. He parked the truck and hit the brake with his foot. “Lunchtime.” 

The line for the cafeteria began to coalesce, and Erik and Laila glanced at each other in tacit agreement. As they got up, the attendant hurried over. “You stay here, Mr. Dupuis,” he insisted. 

Erik bristled. “Oh?” he huffed. “Have I lost my lunch privileges already?” 

“Not yet,” replied the attendant. “There’s a visitor here to see you. She’s coming in now.” 

The revelation was followed by a shallow, uncertain beat. “Uh, okay...” Erik was visibly flummoxed. “I wasn’t aware I had a visitor today.” 

The attendant gave Laila the once-over in a manner that could only be described as cruel. “She’s young and pretty and blonde. You sure know how to pick ’em.” 

Erik turned white as a sheet. “Oh God.” 

“What is it?” Laila was so focused on him she hadn’t even registered the attendant’s slight. 

Erik could barely summon the words. He was starting to hyperventilate and the blood pounded in his ears like screaming. Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe if he didn’t think or speak it aloud, he could keep it from coming true. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of heels clicking down the hallway. _Nobody_ wore heels in rehab. 

“Erik, what’s wrong?” Laila asked. 

He answered right as a petite blonde figure emerged from the corridor. Like clockwork, every man in the lunch line turned to look at her as she passed. When the words came, they were bitter fruit in his mouth. “It’s Christine.”


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

Opening tracks:  
The Smashing Pumpkins, “Thru the Eyes of Ruby”, Nine Inch Nails, “Please”, Beach House, “Pay No Mind”, Depeche Mode, “Nothing’s Impossible” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The scene unfolded in the same kind of lurid slow-motion sequence Erik lived over and over again in his dreams, enacted with the sort of numb distance and sick fascination one might employ to watch a bomb explode. He’d seen horror in his life, plenty of it, yet somehow every blood-soaked memory paled in comparison to _this_. Objectively, it was the type of situation he usually reveled in, a random natural manifestation of the conflux between chance and chaos, but this triangle—was there any other word for it?—conjured an operatic symmetry of the most poetic and profoundly mindfucking proportions. If he could have slipped through a trap door and disappeared, he would have done so in a heartbeat. 

From across the room, two of the most beautiful women he had ever met beheld each other, while the rest of the room simply forgot to breathe. 

“Hi Erik,” Christine said, leaning against the wall by the nurses’ station. She looked good; Christine always looked good, clad in a cropped leather jacket over a plaid slip dress with chunky high-heeled boots. There was, however, one exception. 

“Christine...” He exhaled disdainfully. “Your _hair_.” 

Her manicured hand automatically went to her platinum chin-length bob, and the large diamond on her finger glittered. “I knew you would hate it,” she remarked, looking him over with a mixture of amusement, exasperation, and pity. “How the hell are you, Erik?” 

“Having the time of my life,” he deadpanned through his teeth. 

The attendant clapped his hands a couple times to reestablish order. “Alright everyone, let’s get on with it,” he droned loudly. “Cafeteria people, line up.” 

To his right, Laila broke away and moved hesitantly towards the line. “I’ll see you later, Erik,” she muttered, and turned the brunt of her death stare towards Christine. “He’s too good for _you_ ,” she hissed icily as she passed. 

Christine’s jaw dropped open, and she turned confoundedly to Erik as he flushed pink. “What was that?” she mouthed. 

As if on cue, another figure appeared in the triangle, emerging from the opposite doorway. It was Stacy. She had been napping for hours and was only now taking in the enantiodromia before her. Like every other person, she stopped to gawk at Christine and then Erik as she put two-and-two together. “ _Ohhh myyy God_ ,” she whispered incredulously. She reached Laila at the end of the line just as it began to move, and Laila cast Erik one last desperate glance before they left. 

“Well, Christine,” Erik said grimly, squeezing his temples. He had gotten his racing thoughts under control, and the room had emptied out except for the regulars, who were all clustered around the dining table with their heads down like penitent children. “Shall we do this here or would you like a little privacy?” 

“Some privacy would be nice,” she replied with a smirk, “though it seems like that might be a moot point.” 

Erik had absolutely nothing to say to that. It was still so shocking to see her again in the flesh, especially after months pining over her in a drug-induced haze. How many sleepless nights had he prayed for this reunion? How many times had he gotten down on his hands and knees and begged the universe for the chance to see her face again? It was unthinkable that it would happen like this, at a time when he was on the verge of forgetting her altogether. 

“Let’s go to my room,” he finally offered. 

When they got there, he left the door slightly open and walked over to the beds. As she followed, he noticed her blue eyes were glassy with tears. _Uh-oh._

“Erik, what the fuck happened to you?” she bleated. A second later the waterworks were in full force and she was hugging him, crushing herself against his chest. He reeled with something that resembled motion sickness. _Christine was hugging him._ “Are you okay?” she demanded. 

“I’m fine,” he managed to squeak, rapidly losing any semblance of control. The familiar scent of vanilla and citrus in her hair washed over him in an intoxicating wave, triggering a slideshow of memories: the first time they kissed on the leather couch in the mix room, holding hands on the subway in the dead of winter when she insisted they take the L train back to her tiny railroad apartment, the night they got sloppy drunk after she signed her first deal with Interscope. There was still a hole in one of the acoustic baffles where the cork from the champagne had punctured it. 

“I couldn’t believe it,” she whispered. “I called Nadir when I couldn’t get ahold of you, and he told me you were here.” She took a deep breath and stepped back to get a better look at him. “He said you almost died.” 

Carefully, Erik extracted himself from her arms. “I’m fine, Christine,” he repeated, and flashed her a weary smile. “I can’t die, remember? I’m like a cat, or a cockroach. I always come back.” 

Christine sniffled; she didn’t seem too convinced. “Cats and roaches die all the time,” she told him, and took a seat on one of the beds. 

He sat down across from her and handed her a box of tissues from the nightstand. “I didn’t realize you cared so much,” he said flatly. It came out sounding worse than he intended, so he tried again. “Does your husband know you are here?” 

Another failed attempt at being civil. “My husband trusts me,” she retorted. “He doesn’t need to keep tabs on me 24-7.” _Like you did_ , read the sub-text. 

He decided to ignore it. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?” 

She sighed. “I had to fly into New York for meetings, and I wanted to spend some time with the Girys. I haven’t seen them in months; prepping for this next tour has been exhausting. I’ve been staying with Adele in Millburn all week. Meg’s actually the one who drove me here. She’s waiting in the lobby.” 

“And how is Meg?” Erik asked, latching onto what seemed like a neutral topic. 

“She’s good,” Christine said. “Still working at NYU and trying to get her dance company off the ground.” 

“And Adele?” 

“Healing up from a bilateral knee replacement. She plans on going back to her position at the Paper Mill Playhouse next spring.” She paused. “You know, she talks on the phone with Nadir every so often.” 

“I didn’t realize that,” he replied coolly, making a mental note to scold Nadir at the first available opportunity. 

“I guess Nadir has been worried about you for a while,” she added. 

Erik crossed his arms. “Well, it wasn’t unwarranted,” he scoffed. 

She studied him with scrupulous eyes. “I want to set things straight with you, Erik,” she said warily. “I feel really bad about the way we left things in California.” 

“What’s there to feel bad about?” he questioned. “The day you rebuffed me and broke my heart after I flew out and gave you Madeleine’s ring? The time you stripped me of my contractural right to produce and hired that greasy idiot, forcing me to sue? The _countersuit?_ ” His laughter was harsh. “Let me tell you, Christine, of all the things I expected from you, I did not expect that.” 

Christine glanced down at the floor. “The lawyer stuff got out of hand,” she admitted, “and I regret the countersuit.” 

“I should have anticipated it,” Erik snarled. “After all, you married a Chagny.” 

“Raoul had nothing to do with it,” she snapped. “And I sincerely hope you aren’t upset with the terms of our settlement.” 

Erik waved this off dismissively. “It was never about the money, Christine.” 

“Then why sue me?” 

He ran both hands frantically through his hair, like he was going to pull it out. “What else was I supposed to do?” he responded bleakly. “You left me in the dust, and I was being petty. Then you released that horrible, derivative song about me...” 

“You hurt me. I wanted to get back at you.” 

“Well, I’m glad it worked out for you,” he declared bitterly. “I heard it everywhere, you know, that stupid fucking song. It was impossible to escape it. Bodegas, taxis...” He ripped into a flawless imitation of the hook in falsetto. _“Weeee-eeee are never, ever, ever, getting back together...”_

“It charted for quite a while,” she said with a wry smile. “The digital single broke records. I guess in a way I should be thanking you.” 

“Do you know what it’s like to hear the story of your breakup broadcast all over the radio, week after week?” he asked solemnly. 

Christine deflated a little. “It sucks, Erik,” she acquiesced, “but it could have been way worse for you.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

She lowered her voice. “I could have sang about what actually happened,” she confided. “I could have gone public about what you did to me.” 

“We’ve been over this, Christine,” Erik answered irritatedly. “I was protecting your interests as an artist.” 

“You spied on me,” she blurted. “You violated my privacy, over and over again. My phone. My social media accounts. You hacked into my computer. _You lied to me._ ” 

“As I said, I was protecting your interests.” 

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” She shook her head sadly. “The only person you were looking out for is yourself.” 

“And look at where I am now.” He gestured scornfully at the room. 

She groaned and sat back on the bed. “You never treated me like an equal. Never.” 

The words hit hard and he swallowed, knowing it was true. “I loved you, Christine,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m... sorry if I treated you poorly.” 

“I forgive you, Erik,” she told him. “Not just for your sake, but for my own. I can’t carry around that kind of hostility anymore.” 

“Then you’re a much bigger person than me,” he sneered. 

Christine knew where this was going. “Despite what you may think, Erik, I never betrayed you.” She beamed at him with a stare of genuine concern. “Do you really _not_ remember what happened?” 

His jaw jutted out defiantly, but the frozen look of animal fear in his eyes said he didn’t. 

“I came back from LA that first time, and you told me you needed space,” she went on, the hurt creeping into her voice. “You abandoned _me_ , at the very moment I needed you most. You were distant—unreachable. I didn’t know what to do, so I moved on.” She looked down at her hands. “Part of me must have known you were back on drugs.” 

Erik’s foot twitched and knocked noisily into the bedside table. “My recollection differs,” he countered, “and I was not _back on drugs_.” 

She doubled down. “Oh yes you were. You’re not as slick as you think. I saw you consume fistfuls of pills, and God knows what else.” 

“I am prescribed Klonopin,” he gritted through his teeth. 

“How about the lines of Adderall to stay up all night?” she continued. “Was that prescribed too?” 

“Those were extenuating circumstances,” he said with a glare. “I’m not the one who brought it into the studio, and I was working on a deadline.” 

Her silence said everything, but eventually she spoke. “What you need to work on, Erik, is being honest with yourself.” 

“I’ll take that under advisement,” he grumbled. 

She blew a blonde lock out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “It was always so hot and cold with you,” she confessed. “I never knew what to expect. Half the time, you wanted to marry me and never leave my side. The other half... it was like I didn’t exist.” 

“I’m _sorry_ ,” he spat. “You know I get weirdly fixated on things when I’m manic.” 

“Then out of nowhere, you were calling me in the middle of the night, sending threatening messages, slurring your words. You flew out to see me with no warning and broke into my apartment. You barged in on me and Raoul and nearly _killed him_. It took weeks for the marks on his neck to go away.” 

There was a long pause. “I wasn’t in my right mind,” he finally said. “I admit it.” 

“You need therapy, Erik,” she told him. “A lot of it.” She glanced around the room. “Do you think this place is helping you?” 

He let out a sigh. “You know, I think it might be.” 

“That girl out there seemed awfully protective of you,” she observed. 

“That girl is none of your business,” he retaliated. 

She smiled knowingly. “Well, whatever you do, Erik, remember this: you can’t just play with people’s lives and discard them when they fail to live up to your expectations.” 

“I didn’t discard you,” he sniffed. “You sold out.” 

“I’m happy with my career,” she said proudly, “so frankly, I don’t care what you think.” 

That was new. He took her slowly, in like he was suddenly seeing her for the first time. “As long as you’re happy, Christine, then I’m happy for you,” he whispered. The ache in his heart made him feel like he was a hundred years old. “And... I’m proud of you.” 

“You really mean that?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he answered in a choked voice. 

Her eyes lit up. “That reminds me—I have something for you,” she said. “I almost forgot it with all the, uh, drama.” She reached into her patent leather clutch and pulled out a small black velvet box. 

Erik knew exactly what was in it. “I don’t want that back, Christine.” 

“Yes, you do,” she insisted. She opened the box and held it up to the light; the Burmese star ruby with its elegant halo of diamonds sparkled inside. “You’ll give it to someone else someday,” she assured him. “The person who is meant to wear it.” 

He couldn’t speak. With a shaky hand, he took back the box and closed it. 

“There’s one more thing,” she added, a little less confidently. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react, but I wanted to keep my promise.” She reached back into her bag and handed him a silky envelope, addressed to him in silvery copperplate. 

“What’s this?” he asked. 

“A wedding invitation, like you requested,” she replied, and bit her lower lip. “You might not remember, you were pretty out of it.” 

He was visibly confused. “I thought you tied the knot already.” 

“We eloped over the summer, but Raoul’s parents want us to have a little reception party for family and friends, so we’re having a thing this October. I convinced them to do it in Manhattan, so it would mean a lot to me if you’d come. You know I don’t have much in the way of family.” She blinked a few times and looked away. 

It took a minute for him to regain his composure. “I can’t promise anything,” he murmured brokenly, “but I will try.” 

“I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for you,” she said, gazing softly at him. “Don’t think I don’t realize it. You helped me find my voice, and for that I will always be grateful.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “So, are you going to clean up?” 

He nodded and cleared his throat. 

“Promise?” she asked forcefully, and he nodded again. “Because contrary to what you think, a lot of people care about you. In some circles you’re like a fucking legend.” She leaned forward. “I kept my promise, Erik. Now you have to keep yours.” 

“I will,” he croaked. 

She sat back with palpable relief. “Okay,” she breathed, and wrinkled her face. “How much longer do you think you have to stay here?” 

“I’m going to leave tomorrow,” Erik said with certainty. 

“Are you gonna do, like, a program or meetings or something after that?” 

“Amazingly enough, I met a competent psychiatrist here, so I plan on continuing treatment with her. She’s an addiction specialist and practices CBT with all her patients. We’ll probably do weekly appointments.” 

“I’m happy to hear that,” she remarked. “You should consider going to meetings too. I know you hate that kind of stuff, but they helped my dad a lot.” 

“Well, who I am to argue with the great Gustav Daae,” he smirked. 

She smiled warmly, and a little part of him fell in love with her all over again. “It’s been really nice to see you, Erik. Don’t be a stranger.” There was a text notification ding, and she glanced down at her phone. “I gotta get going, Meg is getting antsy.” 

“I’m surprised she sat still this long,” he quipped. 

Christine stood and smoothed out her dress. “You take care of yourself, okay? For real this time. And make sure you’re eating and sleeping.” As he rose, she stepped forward and gently embraced him. “I’m proud of you for getting help.” 

The room was spinning, and he returned the hug in a daze. “Thanks Christine.” 

“Wanna walk me out, for old time’s sake?” she asked as she let him go. 

He shook his head. “I want to, but I think I need a few minutes alone.” 

“I’ll let myself out then,” she replied, and made for the door. When she got there, she gave him one more backward glance. “Goodbye Erik.” 

He fell back onto the bed and cradled his head in his hands. “Goodbye Christine.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

He sat there for a long time, staring at nothing, watching the world blur as the tears streamed silently down his face. He didn’t know how to hold back the feelings anymore; the waves broke against him and he burst open like a dam, letting the current take him away. How the fuck had he fallen this far? How much of the past was a drug-addled hallucination, a desperate lie, a delusional platitude he repeated over and over until it became real in his mind? Was it all just a story he told himself in the end? How many gaps _were_ there in his memory? 

What else was untrue? 

It’s my fault, he realized, and let out a muted cry as he tore at his hair and beat his fists savagely upon the mattress. I’m the one who drove her away out of fear, I’m the one who slipped up and started using and became a living nightmare. There is no coming to consciousness without pain— _I brought it all upon myself_. With an angry grunt, he kicked the bedside table into the cinderblock wall, and it clattered loudly to the floor. 

Before he knew what he was doing, he had taken off his mask and staggered up to the mirror. This was a form of self-torture he had engaged in every day for as long as he had been alive, for thirty-eight miserable years. Grimacing, he forced himself to take in the full horror of his own deathly visage: the missing cartilage, the bony sockets of his eyes, the razor-sharp angle of his cheekbones and his strange, smooth, hairless skin with its alien texture. He looked deeply into the burning yellow pits of his pupils and saw nothing—nothing redeemable, nothing pure, and certainly nothing worth saving. 

I’m a monster, he thought. _Erik is a monster._

With a murderous yell, he grabbed the bedside table and launched it with his full strength into the mirror. It shattered immediately into a shimmering symphony of around two dozen pieces, most of which remained affixed to the wall. The bedside table also split and broke into pieces upon impact, flying everywhere like a pulverized piñata. Erik kicked at the debris and picked up a large sliver of glass that had fallen to the floor. He squeezed it until the blood dripped steadily from his hand. 

Suddenly, there were staff members everywhere. “Get his hands!” one of them shouted, and he immediately went feral like a wild animal, growling and kicking and biting as one attendant pinned his arms behind him and a second attendant administered a painful shot straight into the muscles of his derrière. 

But it wasn’t enough to keep him down—these pathetic excuses for orderlies had no fucking clue who they were dealing with. With a quick twist and a jerk of his wiry limbs, Erik wriggled free from the attendant’s grasp and lunged at the door. Whatever was in the needle had made his balance go sideways, and he wobbled to his knees. When the second attendant came at him, he rolled out of the way and punched him square in the nose. The attendant yowled, erupting into a fountain of blood, and crumpled to the floor. With a victorious leer, Erik reached for the door. 

“I need more haloperidol!” bellowed the first attendant. 

There was more staff swarming in from the hallway. “Erik, you need to calm down!” someone shouted. It was a woman’s voice, probably a nurse. He looked up just as the new wave of offenders surrounded him and a second needle plunged into his flesh. 

“Erik’s not here right now,” he whimpered as a single tear trickled down his ruined cheek, and his hideous face finally sank to the ground. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

There was an eerie quiet lingering over the unit when the rest of the detox patients returned from lunch in the cafeteria. Laila and Stacy decided to take scenic route back, snaking their way around the corner to the long hallway of patient rooms. Erik’s room was a short distance down on the right. When they got there they stopped right in front and looked at each other. The door was slightly ajar. 

“I’m just going to stick my head in,” said Stacy, trying to convince herself this was reasonable. “The door’s open.” 

Laila nodded and gazed stonily into the distance, and her friend disappeared inside. “Holy shit,” Stacy cried after a beat. “You better come in here.” 

Laila tip-toed into the room with her heart in her throat. It took her a moment to process what she saw. Blood—there was blood everywhere, and the demolished remnants of some unfortunate piece of furniture. She looked over at the wall and saw that the mirror was broken. “Oh no,” she whispered. _Erik..._

“Hey Laila.” Stacy pointed down at an object on the floor. It was Erik’s white mask. 

Laila walked over and picked it up, her sneakers crunching over the detritus on the ground. She turned the mask over slowly in her hands. It seemed to have lost its luster without the green-eyed spirit that lived behind it. “This is not good,” she murmured. 

“Check this out,” motioned Stacy. There was a black jewelry box on the bed. 

“Open it,” Laila said, and she did. The star ruby with its six points danced like a winking god’s eye in the light, the delicate circle of diamonds flashing like a crown. 

Stacy’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my God,” she gasped, holding a hand to her mouth. 

Laila’s eyes glittered. Her lips formed a thin straight line. “Give me that,” she said with a crack in her voice, and Stacy handed it over. Laila took a deep breath and closed the box. There it was—the final sword that pierced her heart and tore her to pieces. She looked away to pull herself together. “We better find him,” she declared gravely. “Wherever he is, he’s going to want this.” She held up the mask. 

“What should we do with the ring?” Stacy asked. 

Laila slipped both the box and mask into the central pocket of her black hoodie. “I’m going to hold onto it for him,” she answered, shaky but determined. “I don’t trust the staff.” 

They went out to the common room, where the patients were talking hushedly amongst themselves. As soon as Laila walked in, the group fell silent. She and Stacy approached the nurses’ station, but there was no one behind the counter. 

Laila turned to the room. “Where are all the nurses?” 

The patients at the table exchanged worried glances. “The nurses are taking care of Erik,” Phil finally answered. 

“What do you mean by that?” questioned Laila. “Where’s Erik?” 

Phil folded his hands and stared down at the table. “He’s in the quiet room.” 

“What?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Where is the quiet room?” 

He sighed, feeling extra guilty about winning the betting pool. “I’ll show you,” he told her, and got up from his chair. 

The quiet room was on the far side of the unit, tucked all the way in the back. As she walked over with Phil, Laila fingered the jewelry box nervously in her pocket. “So can you tell me what happened?” she asked timidly. 

“We don’t really know,” he said. “The blonde lady left, and ten minutes later Erik went nuts and trashed the room. He broke the mirror and punched one of the attendants. I guess he’s a real fighter,” he chuckled. “They had to sedate him twice.” He realized he wasn’t making her feel any better and stopped talking. 

“What’s the deal with the quiet room?” 

Phil scratched the back of his head. “You know the padded cells you see in movies about insane asylums?” 

“Yeah,” she replied. 

“That.” 

She stopped short. “He’s in a _padded cell?_ For how long?” Her voice was getting shrill. 

Phil shrugged. “Long enough for him to calm down and cease to be a danger to himself or others. He’ll probably sleep off most of it, no more than a day.” 

“What?!” 

“They gave him a lot of haloperidol,” he informed her sadly. “It might be a while, kid.” 

When they got to the quiet room, there were two attendants on the way out who immediately blocked their path. Laila could barely make out a sparse white anteroom with a second door and a rectangular window inside, as well as a small CCTV. The entrance itself was unremarkable except for a panel of dark tinted glass in the door. 

“You can’t come in here,” boomed the attendant. 

“I have Erik’s mask,” Laila said, holding it out. When the attendant reached for it, she snatched it back. 

The attendant was not amused. “Give me that.” 

“I will, if you let me see Erik,” she leveraged. 

“Trust me, you don’t wanna see,” jibed the attendant. He took note of her desperation and thumbed his nose. “Give me the mask and I’ll let you talk when he gets dinner.” 

Laila paused to consider this. She didn’t trust him at all, but she had no choice. “I hope to God you’re telling the truth,” she swore, and handed over the mask. 

The attendant passed it to another staff member inside before turning back to her. “Come back around 5:30, after the dinner truck gets here,” he said. “And don’t look so glum, your boyfriend’s gonna be fine. He’s just taking a nice long nap.” 

What followed was the loneliest, most miserable afternoon of Laila’s life, a hundred times worse than any day she spent strung out alone and curled up in agony, waiting for a call back from her dealer. She would endure those days willingly all over again if it meant she could somehow free Erik and behold him in all his brutal, bare-faced glory. It was impossible not to hear the attendants gossiping about his deformity while she stood on the line for cigarettes. The orderly with the busted face, Buquet, wouldn’t stop talking about it. His words echoed in her mind long after he left for the ER: _he looks like death, death incarnate_. 

Now that she knew for sure, she didn’t care; she just needed to soothe the ache in her soul. All it would take is a look in his eyes. 

She went outside and smoked a cigarette despite the torrential downpour, then sequestered herself away in bed beneath the blankets. The cleaning staff arrived with their brooms and garbage bins to salvage the wreckage of Erik’s room, and life went on as normal for everyone except her. Nobody bothered to salvage Laila. 

She couldn’t stop thinking about the ring—and Christine. It was difficult not to be intimidated by someone so classically beautiful, who obviously meant so much to Erik. So that’s the kind of woman he loves, she mused dejectedly. Bright, sunny, successful, her polar opposite in many respects. Suddenly she felt more sullen and sallow than she had ever felt in her life. _A person like me would never wear a ring like that..._ but if anyone could talk her into it, it would be someone like him. Agitatedly, she flipped the lid of the velvet box open and shut, playing hide-and-seek with the starry jewel inside. She could hardly conceive of the existence which overlapped with such a bauble. Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems, she told herself, maybe he doesn’t love her anymore. Or maybe he’s out of my league, and I’m just a lovesick idiot. 

In the end, there was only one solution, and that was to create. As she dug through the stash of stolen art supplies lodged under her mattress, the makeshift key to the rec room fell to the floor. She picked it up and stared at it. 

_Pay no mind, it takes time..._

The words came in a rush, and Laila scribbled them down frantically. When she finally stopped, it was time for dinner, and she had written the entire song in her head. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

By 5:45pm, she accomplished three things. First, she went to the cafeteria and forced herself to eat, though she couldn’t have cared less about food. Then she scavenged for rolls and peanut butter, stuffing them into every available pocket. Lastly, after meds, she used Erik’s key to break into the rec room while everyone else was outside smoking. The key worked quite effectively. With a newfound sense of urgency she hurried over to the quiet room, the guitar case slung over her shoulder. 

After thirty seconds of impatient knocking, the attendant let her in. He was camped out in front of the CCTV with earbuds and a paperback book. The window to the room beyond was dark, but on the TV screen Laila could make out a scant figure huddled in the corner. “He’s still conked out,” the attendant explained. “I haven’t even given him dinner.” He gestured at an untouched dinner tray. 

She snorted. “He’s not going to eat that. He won’t eat anything that was prepared on the premises, he told me so himself, but he will eat this.” She began unloading the peanut butter and dinner rolls onto the tray. 

The attendant watched her with a curious expression. “You got it real bad, don’t you?” he commented when she was done. 

Laila rolled her eyes. “So can I see him? How do we talk?” 

“You can’t see each other,” clarified the attendant, “but you _can_ hear each other.” He went up to the tiny square window on the heavy interior door and popped it open. 

Well, she would have to make do. She removed the guitar from its case and slowly turned to him with the full power of her best puppy-eyed stare. “Is it too much to ask for a minute of privacy?” she pleaded. “Please?” 

“Yes.” The attendant looked her over with a glint in his eyes. “But I’ll tell you what, Ms. Ward—you got some chops and a nice set of pipes on ya, and I happen to be a big music lover, so I’ll give you ten.” 

“Oh my God, thank you,” she gushed. 

“I’m going to be right outside,” said the attendant, grabbing the book and the folding chair. “Don’t try anything funny, that door’s locked.” 

“I won’t,” she promised, and he left with the door slightly cracked. 

She settled down on the bare floor with the guitar, right below the tiny open window, and leaned her head back against the door. “Hi Erik, it’s Laila,” she said with a sigh, and began downtuning by ear as she strummed E flat major. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I remember when they drugged me, I could hear you. You stayed with me, and that really meant a lot.” Her voice broke a little. “So I hope you can hear this, because I wrote it for you.” She did a final test run of the chord progression. “It’s called ‘Pay No Mind’.” 

_“Pay no mind  
It takes time  
What’s that you say _

_Down the hall  
I heard a song  
Who knows  
Drifting away _

_Baby at night when I look at you  
Nothing in this world keeps me confused  
All it takes: look in your eyes _

_Ooh, ooh ooh_

_All of me  
Is to tow the waste  
What’s that you say  
It’s going away _

_It’s painful but  
You do what you must  
It takes time to know _

_Baby at night when I look at you  
Nothing in this world keeps me confused  
All it takes: look in your eyes _

_Who knows if there are roses in heaven  
Let go of that empty feeling  
Not dumber, just a little bit older  
Kiss of love couldn’t be much colder _

_Ooh, ooh, ooh”_

It was a shoegazey epic, drowned in natural reverb thanks to the acoustics of the tiny room, and perhaps the best her voice had ever sounded, but she bowed her head to nothing but radio silence. I gave him my soul, she thought placidly, and now I am dead. Then she gazed at the CCTV and noticed the corner was empty. In a panic, she grabbed the attendant. “I don’t know what happened to Erik!” 

The attendant turned the light up in the quiet room and peered in through the wide rectangular window. “He’s still in there, he just moved.” He laughed nervously and pointed to the side. “He’s curled up against the door.” 

She glanced in before he turned the light back down. “Do you think he heard me?” 

“Oh yeah,” said the attendant in a watery voice. He cleared his throat. “Song like that, you bet he did.” He motioned at his watch. “Five minutes. Don’t squander it.” 

Laila nodded and repositioned herself against the door as he left. “I guess you heard that,” she whispered up to the window. “That’s the first song I’ve written in a year, so I should probably thank you.” She closed her eyes and leaned back, trying to collect her thoughts. “God, I suck at this. I don’t know what to say to you, I don’t know why you destroyed your room or why your ex-girlfriend showed up, or why there’s a _ring_.” Her voice cracked. “I’m so bad at this shit, Erik, and I hate this place. I think I’m gonna try to leave in the morning. I would really like it if you left with me. Maybe we could go for that ride.” She waited, but there was no response. “I guess there’s nothing left to say, then,” she went on, strumming E minor, “except this.” 

_“Just give me a reason, some kind of sign  
I’ll need a miracle to help me this time  
I heard what you said and I feel the same  
I know in my heart that I’ll have to change _

_Even the stars look brighter tonight  
Nothing’s impossible  
I still believe in love at first sight  
Nothing’s impossible _

_How did we get to be this far apart?  
Let’s take a chance, go back to the start  
I want to be with you, have something to share  
I want to be near you, I’m not there _

_Even the stars look brighter tonight  
Nothing’s impossible  
I still believe in love at first sight  
Nothing’s impossible _

_Even the stars look brighter tonight  
Nothing’s impossible  
If you believe in love at first sight  
Nothing’s impossible _

_I still believe in love at first sight  
Nothing’s impossible”_

Her fingers were on fire as she ripped into the groove and then an improvised solo, letting the rich melancholy tones build and fill the room with their hypnotic and darkly optimistic plea. She drew out the ending after the last two lines with a meandering take on the main riff, lingering on the last notes as she closed her eyes, not wanting the spell to end. “That was from Depeche Mode’s _Playing the Angel_ ,” she confirmed deliriously, her head against the door. “One of their later albums, but I’m sure you knew that already.” She sighed. “You’re very angelic, Erik, do you know that?” 

“Ms. Ward,” came the voice of the attendant. “It’s time to say goodbye.” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Author’s note:  
So much to unpack here. I hope I have done both parties of our beloved OG couple justice. The lawsuit drama between them was based on Lady Gaga’s very public dispute with her first producer, Rob Fusari, who named her and honed her early sound. They also settled out of court. 

Christine’s big radio hit was 100% inspired/ripped off from Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. I didn’t list it in the beginning of the chapter, but there you have it. 

Finally, Laila’s first song is “Pay No Mind” by Beach House, from their album _7_ (highly recommended if you like shoegaze/dream pop).


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

“Say goodbye on a night like this  
If it’s the last thing you ever do  
You never looked as lost as this  
Sometimes it doesn’t even look like you”  
\- The Cure 

Opening tracks:  
Depeche Mode, “Suffer Well”, The Cure, “A Night Like This”, Röyksopp, “What Else Is There?” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It was dark when Erik finally woke, with a strange sensation in his dry mouth and an unnatural stiffness to his aching limbs. He soon realized why: he was wearing a restraint jacket, and was trapped in what was essentially a padded cage. 

Previous events came flooding back to him in a rush, the equivalent of a runaway train screeching behind his eyes, filling in his mind with all the sordid details: Christine and the return of the ring, a broken mirror, fighting with the orderlies, the prick of a needle and the black stretch of nothingness that followed; then, out of nowhere, music piercing the dark and beaming down around him like a ray of heavenly protection, the soulful and loving lament of a fellow angel in hell. _Laila..._

Maybe, just maybe, with music like that, there was hope for him yet. 

He was alone now. With a grunt, he tested the limits of the restraints, and quickly realized he was maskless. “Hey!” he shouted at the dark window and the dim square of light in the door. “Give me my mask!” 

A laconic voice responded from the other side. “Welcome back to earth, Mr. Dupuis. Just a minute.” The attendant turned up the lights in both rooms. 

Erik groaned and attempted to shield his eyes. “Ugh. Can I have my _mask_ , please?” He glared at the window and coughed. “And I wouldn’t mind some water, and some basic human dignity.” With a pang, he noticed one of his palms was stinging and bandaged. 

There was the sound of keys jingling, and the click of a key in the lock. “Stand up against the back wall, Mr. Dupuis, I’m coming in,” announced the attendant. Erik remained where he was, but the door swung open anyway and the orderly’s bulky outline appeared. He was carrying the mask and a large cup of water with a straw. 

Erik balked at the drink and held his head down. “Mask first,” he insisted. 

The attendant put down the water, then carefully attached the mask to Erik’s face. His whole body relaxed instantaneously once it was in place. “Thank you,” he whispered. When he was offered the straw again he took a deep drink, then gazed imploringly at his keeper. “Are you going to let me out of these restraints?” 

The attendant raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to behave?” 

“Yes,” said Erik, holding his green eyes steady. 

His caretaker regarded him skeptically. “You caused a lot of a grief yesterday, to a lot of people,” he mused, rubbing his chin. 

Erik grimaced. “Yesterday? Is it Monday already?” 

The attendant went on with the litany of offenses. “You broke Joe Buquet’s nose and destroyed several hundred dollars’ worth of hospital property. Nursing went into overtime because of you.” He paused. “Your girlfriend was also quite upset.” 

That last bit got Erik’s attention, and he hung his head remorsefully. “Yeah, I fucked up,” he admitted. “I won't do it again. Just take off the restraints, please.” He laughed a little, sounding unhinged. “I've got an itch.” 

At long last the attendant acquiesced and undid the buckles on the jacket, releasing his arms. “Thank you,” Erik gasped. He got up, stretched out his arms, and took another lengthy sip of water, then started for the door. 

The attendant moved quickly to block his passage. He was refrigerator-shaped and took up almost the entire door frame. “Not so fast, Mr. D. You’re not going anywhere until the doc clears it.” Erik backed up slowly when the attendant didn’t budge. “In the meantime, you should eat this.” The attendant reached into the anteroom and handed him a tray covered in rolls and peanut butter. There was also a mug of lukewarm coffee. “The girl told me to give you this before she left.” 

Erik chugged the coffee straight up with a shudder, then tore into a roll and dipped it in peanut butter. “What do you mean, left?” 

“She’s gone,” said the attendant. “They discharged her earlier today.” 

Erik gaped at him with dumb shock. “She left already? What time is it?” 

The attendant glanced at his watch. “It is 3:26pm, Monday, September 13th. You’ve been asleep for over twenty-four hours.” He crossed his arms to gloat. “I hope you enjoyed the nap. Seems like you might have needed it.” 

“You make it sound like I had a choice,” grumbled Erik. 

“You did,” replied the attendant. “You made it when you violated the terms of your treatment by smashing that mirror and assaulting the staff.” 

“You’ve seen my face, can you blame me?” Erik quipped. “And for what it’s worth, the staff assaulted _me_.” 

It took nearly an hour for the doctor to get there and declare Erik fit for re-integration. Hah, he thought. He was on his very best behavior, doing what he was told and holding back most of his barbed commentary. It wasn't easy, given the gargantuan size of his headache. _Let me go, let me go, let me go_ , he beamed silently at his captors, as the doctor observed his pupil response and took his blood pressure with a stethoscope. Finally, the doctor finished marking off his chart and gave Erik a terse nod of approval. 

“You’ll be restricted to the unit until tomorrow,” he added, scrutinizing his eccentric patient over the top of his glasses. 

“Oh, I’ll be gone long before then.” The words slipped out before Erik could stop them. “The first thing I plan on doing is signing out AMA.” 

The doctor shook his head. “You can’t sign out against medical advice until tomorrow, at the very earliest.” 

Erik glowered at him. “You can’t keep me here. I submitted to treatment voluntarily for over a week, I am well within my rights to leave.” 

“Dr. Reed needs to sign off on your discharge paperwork,” the doctor explained. “She took a half-day today and she won’t be back until Tuesday.” 

“Then someone else can do it,” declared Erik. “You can do it.” 

“It doesn’t work like that,” said the doctor. “You are her patient, her responsibility. The document needs her signature.” He took off his glasses and wiped them on his lab coat. “You should not be rushing off anywhere, Erik.” 

Erik ran a hand through his hair and laughed nervously. “Who says I’m rushing?” He glanced at the door. “Can I go?” 

The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose and put his glasses back on. “Go,” he sighed. By the time he looked up, Erik was gone. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The first place Erik went was his room, which looked sterile and empty, a little worse for the wear now that it was lacking both a side table and a mirror. No matter—he wasn’t going to be trapped in this tacky, tasteless prison much longer. He quickly changed into clean clothes and his favorite hooded sweater, used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and splashed cold water on his face. Next, he stalked off to get some answers. As fate would have it, the first person he ran into was Stacy. 

“Erik!” Stacy was genuinely surprised to see him, her mouth forming a tiny “o” of astonishment. She took a couple steps back instinctively. “You’re awake!” 

Erik took a determined breath and gazed down at her with narrowed eyes. “Stacy,” he said, as evenly and non-menacingly as he could muster. “Where the fuck is Laila?” It still came out sounding like a threat. 

Stacy pulled him over to the side of the corridor as two other patients passed, giving him a wide berth. “She’s gone,” she confided in a low tone. “I tried to get her to stay, but she wouldn’t listen.” 

“When did she leave?” he demanded. 

Stacy shrugged. “A couple hours ago. Early afternoon.” 

Erik held a hand up to his brow and closed his eyes. “Christ. Did she say _why?_ ” 

“Oh, I don’t know, Erik,” Stacy waxed with a mischievous glint. “It’s pretty weird to have your ex-girlfriend show up at rehab while you’re working the thirteenth step.” She twirled a long red curl around her finger. “Hella awkward. Also, violently trashing your room did not do you any favors.” 

One side of Erik’s mouth twitched downward. 

“Laila left some things for you,” Stacy added. “They’re in my room, come on.” 

When they got there, she grabbed two papers from the bedside table and hesitated for a moment, then fished around inside her pillow case and pulled out the jewelry box. 

“Oh shit,” murmured Erik. 

Stacy handed him the goods. “Just so you know,” she said with a wry smile, “I could have kept this and hawked it for a ton of cash.” 

“You could have,” he agreed with fake cordiality, opening the box to ensure the ring was intact, “but you wouldn’t have lived long enough to enjoy it.” He closed it with a snap and looked down at the papers. The first was Laila’s drawing of the stone living room. When he flipped it over, he found the following note: 

_Erik,  
KEEP YOUR PROMISE!  
\- L  
908-555-5723  
P.S. Hope you like the drawing._

Erik glanced at the second paper, and what he saw made his mouth drop open. It was a full-page color illustration of him, wearing a mask that was half black, half white, surrounded by a bough of roses and standing over an altar covered in magical tools, with one arm extended to the heavens and the other pointed to the earth. Erik instantly recognized this tableau as the Magician, the first tarot card of the major arcana and more specifically the Rider-Waite version, but there were some curious modifications. The infinity symbol hovering over the Magician’s head had angel wings on either side, and instead of traditional magical instruments to represent the four elements—pentacle, sword, chalice, and wand—there were musical instruments on the table. He noted a drum, flute, violin, and the Roland TB-303, one of the more infamous synths to come out of the ’80s, and most importantly, the foundational sound for acid house and techno. It was, in fact, the first synthesizer he’d ever acquired second-hand. 

The sight of that accurately depicted little rudimentary machine made his heart flutter and take a giant leap. Inconceivable, that a girl he just met with only a cursory grasp of the occult would be able to dig into his psyche like this, or care enough to put this level of attention into what was very clearly a flattering work of art. It was enough to send him careening over the edge of cautious optimism he’d been treading since the moment he met her, and instead of falling, he _flew_. 

“She’s pretty talented,” Stacy remarked. “Patricia said she stayed up all night drawing.” 

It was settled then— _he was going after her_. “Do you know where she went?” he asked, trying to hide the rawness in his voice. 

“I think she just went home,” Stacy said. She took him in appraisingly with a hand on her hip. “Are you gonna go after her?” 

Erik put the ring box in his pocket and folded the two drawings in half. “I am.” 

Stacy leaned forward and slowly jabbed a long red fingernail at him. “So you’re _not_ getting back together with your ex.” 

He gave her a strange look. “Of course not. Why would you think that?” 

Stacy shook her head and laughed. “You don’t know anything about women, do you?” 

“Apparently not,” he sighed, and then froze. “Wait, does _Laila_ think that?” 

“I think she’s understandably confused,” offered Stacy after a beat. 

“Ugh!” He ran both hands through his hair, trying desperately not to panic, then spun around and sunk down on the clothes-covered bed, hunched over like Atlas. “It was not supposed to happen this way.” 

Stacy hid her smile behind one hand, trying not to make light of his distress. “Are you gonna treat her right, Erik?” 

Erik scowled at her. “Of course,” he replied indignantly. 

“Because if you don’t,” she continued, “I will find you and kick your tall spooky ass.” 

“I promise I’ll be good to her.” He let out an exasperated breath and looked down at his trembling hands. “You have no idea, I happen to care about her a lot.” 

“Oh, I have an idea,” she answered, coyly sizing him up. “Do you?” 

He swallowed and stared her down point-blank. “I could love her,” he whispered softly. “And I already may.” The words came from a place of deep truth beyond his conscious mind; speaking them out loud was oddly reassuring. It made everything real. 

Stacy nodded. “Then you better go get her.” 

“I will,” he said with confidence. “But I’m going to need your help.” 

“You got it.” 

What he needed was a makeshift key, like the one he gave to Laila. When he mentioned the key to Stacy, she reached into her pocket and handed it to him. “You know, I never even got to use it,” she pouted. 

He smirked. “We’ll get to use it now.” 

Erik had already studied and memorized the fire evacuation plan posted on the exits. In the event of a fire on the unit, the patients would relocate to either the courtyard or the staff parking lot running the length of the building on the opposite side. Like most hospitals, Oak Haven was equipped with heavy fire doors that activated automatically once the alarm had been pulled, sealing off the area, as well as magnetic releases that would, conversely, unlock all the exterior doors. There were only three direct exits to the outside: the door to the courtyard, and two stairwells at either end of the long back hallway. Since it was a psychiatric institution, the pull alarms were accessible only by key, and it was presumable that the exterior doors also required one, even in the event of a fire. No matter—Erik was prepared for this. He was always prepared. 

The dinner hour was fast approaching, so he had to act quickly. While the rest of the patients were outside smoking, he used the paperclip key to unlock the clear plastic cover on the fire alarm by the rec room and left it open. Next, he strolled past the glass courtyard windows and gave Stacy a discreet thumbs up. She nodded in response and stubbed her cigarette out on the ground with her foot. 

His third stop was the locked room of patient belongings, which was on the other side of the floor around the corner from the nurses’ station. When the hall was deserted, he used the key to jimmy the lock, then taped a coin over the strike plate and tested the door. It would now close without engaging the lock. As he walked away, he glanced at his watch. 4:58pm—almost time for the final act. He crept into the bathroom across the way and turned off the light, waiting just beyond view in a shroud of darkness. 

At 5pm, a loud bell sounded as the fire alarm was triggered. All along the corridors, strobe lights flashed, the fire doors swung closed, and the emergency exit lights flickered. Thank you Stacy, Erik whispered quietly. He listened with amusement to the mass exodus of staff and patients grumbling as they marched past. A lone attendant followed, circling around to pop his head in all the patient rooms. He skipped the bathroom because it looked empty. 

When Erik was certain the coast was clear, he dashed across the hall and slipped back into the unlocked room of possessions. Everything was alphabetized by last name, so the bin with his cell phone and wallet was easy to find, along with another forgotten surprise: his onyx pentagram ring, which glided effortlessly onto his finger. _Yes!_ With a phone in one hand and wallet in the other, he felt a giddy thrill at the power of the resources at his disposal; the universe was now at his command. He left the room and hightailed it towards the emergency exit at the far end of the back corridor, down by the classroom in the opposite direction of all the staff and patient traffic. 

The emergency exit door to the stairwell was open, but the stairwell door to the parking lot was not. It took extra finagling with his key to do the trick, but once the final door swung open and the fresh scent of pine hit his face, Erik knew he was free. He braced the door with his foot and pulled up his oversized hood with a little well-deserved victory swagger. “ _Vi veri veniversum vivus vici_ ,” he declared to the sky. _By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe._ Now that he was liberated, anything was possible, and this time he was going to do things right. With a smug smile, he turned and gave the hospital the middle finger. “Bye assholes!” 

He scampered across the empty parking lot to the safety of the trees and backyards beyond, wondering if Laila’s uncle had bothered to teach her the origins of _that_ particular Latin phrase. There was so much he wanted to show her and teach her, so much unlimited potential buried beneath those sparkling, shifting undine eyes; it awoke something primal in him, and the mere thought of it made him shiver with delight. He took a deep breath to get control of himself. _All things in time, Erik. Find her first._

Once he took shelter behind a toolshed some distance away, he hit the power on his phone and said a prayer. Mercifully, the battery was not dead, but it was low. It was time to catch a ride and find Laila’s address, a feat easily accomplished with a quick internet search. The listing for Sean Ward’s psychology practice was the first result to pop up. “I’m coming, Laila,” Erik whispered, and hit send to dial the car service. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The Ward residence was only an eight-minute drive from the hospital, a short ride south through the residential part of town, tucked away on the curve of a quiet side street by the edge of the reservation. Like most of the surrounding houses, it was a raised ranch built in the 1950s and set back from the street upon a rather steep, ivy-covered hill. As his cab pulled up to the curb in front, Erik had a premonition. He had tried calling Laila twice on the way over, but her phone went straight to voicemail. “Wait here,” he told the driver. He got out and ascended the sloping driveway with a rampant case of nerves that nearly got the best of him. 

He almost lost his cool entirely once he reached the front porch, watching his long pale fingers hit the doorbell like they belonged to some other lovelorn, desperate fool. After a minute the door opened, answered by a fair-haired middle-aged man wearing round glasses and a button-down shirt. “Can I help you?” he asked, pleasantly enough. 

“Uh, yes,” Erik stammered. He had failed to anticipate the shock of coming face-to-face with Laila’s father. Although she hadn’t inherited her father’s coloring, the family resemblance in their bone structure and demeanor was uncanny and it threw him off. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for your daughter.” 

Sean Ward took in the full spectacle of the gaunt, unusual-looking man on his porch. His eyes lingered on the mask for just a beat. “You must be one of Laila’s high school friends,” he replied, recalling the troop of black-clad misfit art kids his daughter favored. “I’m sorry to tell you, but Laila isn’t here right now.” 

“Will she be home soon?” Erik shifted uneasily from foot to foot. He hadn’t counted on her not being here. Where was she? 

Her father exhaled reluctantly. “Laila will be gone for a while,” he said, obviously pained. “She’s in the hospital, but you can leave a message for her if you’d like. I’m sure she’d love to catch up with you once she’s discharged.” 

“Once she’s discharged,” Erik echoed under his breath. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks and he buckled under the weight— _Laila had never gone home_. A myriad of worst-case scenarios unfolded in his mind; suddenly he was watching her OD right before his eyes. He staggered backwards, as though the wind was knocked out of him. 

“Are you alright?” her father asked. 

“Yes,” Erik sputtered, and pivoted towards the idling cab. “T-thank you for your time.” 

“Wait, would you like to leave a message?” The perplexed elder Ward walked out onto to the porch as Erik hastily retreated down the driveway. “What’s your name?” 

Erik got all the way to the car before turning. “Just tell her the OG says hi.” He crawled into the cab and shut his eyes, breathing hard with his head against the seat. 

“Where to, boss?” prompted the cabbie. 

Erik pulled bewilderedly at his torrent of black hair. “Give me a moment,” he said. He shoved his hands deep into his front pockets and pulled out the folded papers Laila had left for him: the drawing of the Magician, and the note with her phone number on it. With a nagging tug in his gut, he opened the note and turned it over and around in his hands, studying the vivid picture on the other side. It was the stone living room, Laila’s favorite place in the world. He flipped the paper over again and reread the sentence: _KEEP YOUR PROMISE!_ Then he remembered her words from art therapy: “It’s the first place I’m going to visit after I leave.” 

“Oh my God,” he murmured. His eyes glazed over with understanding; the answer was right there in front of him. “Laila, you clever girl.” 

“Boss?” The driver was getting antsy. 

Erik looked up with renewed purpose. “I need to pick up my vehicle,” he said. “Take New Providence Road through Mountainside, and I’ll direct you from there.” 

It was a fifteen-minute journey to Nadir’s house, snaking east and then south through the lush green reservation and the hilly backroads, and the sun was just beginning to set. Erik tried to call Laila a few more times before finally giving up on the phone. He was trying not to let his imagination get the best of him as more of her words came back to haunt him. _Everybody always leaves in the end, so I leave first. All I ever wanted was someone who cared enough to chase after me._ The real-world life-and-death consequences of this entanglement increased exponentially the more he ruminated on it. We could destroy each other, he realized, and made a vow right then and there to walk the straight and narrow path, for Laila’s sake if not his own, but it didn’t make him feel any better. By the time the car turned onto Nadir’s street, he was a nervous wreck. 

Erik paid and tipped the driver generously, then waved him off as he got out and traipsed up the driveway. His sleek matte black 911 Turbo S was parked exactly where he left it, and he ran his fingers appreciatively along its side as he passed. With an impatient huff, he rang the doorbell; he was about to utilize the makeshift key when the door finally opened. 

“Erik, what are you doing here?” Nadir asked. He looked down at the paperclip key in Erik’s outstretched fist. “Were you about to break into my house?” 

“Out of the way, daroga,” Erik snapped, pushing past his befuddled friend into the foyer. “I’m here to pick up my car.” 

“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Nadir commented. He followed Erik into the kitchen and watched him pocket his keys from the basket on the counter. 

“There was a slight change in plans, no thanks to you,” said Erik, stopping momentarily to glare at him. “Do you have a flashlight?” 

Nadir gave him an exasperated look. “Why do you need a flashlight?” 

“I may have to hike up a mountain, and it’s getting dark,” Erik replied distractedly. He rummaged through the kitchen junk drawer and extracted a buried flashlight, then tested the power and hurried off to find his coat. 

Nadir was ten steps behind him. “What mountain?” he questioned, as Erik threw open the front closet and rifled through it. “I thought you were here to get your car.” 

Erik turned and rolled his eyes. “I need the _car_ to get to the mountain.” He shook his head. “Deductive reasoning was never your strong suit.” He pulled his trench coat off a hanger and slipped it on. The black cashmere wool cascaded down his lean frame, pooling around him like a thick cloak of shadows. 

Nadir hovered by the bottom of the stairs. “What’s on the mountain?” 

Erik snagged his fedora from the inside hook of the closet door. He put it on and instantly felt at ease, after years of being superstitious about its protective properties. “ _Laila_ ,” he answered succinctly. Her name cast a spell that lingered in the air like a perfumed cloud, a sheer breath of desire. 

It took Nadir a few seconds to process this response. “Erik, do you really need me to tell you why whatever it is you’re planning is a bad idea?” 

“No,” said Erik. “And you are not entitled to an opinion on the matter, since this entire situation is your fault.” 

“My fault?” cried Nadir. “How is it my fault?” 

Erik pointed an accusatory finger at him. “ _You_ told Christine I was in rehab.” He watched the blood drain from Nadir’s face. “She came to see me yesterday.” 

Nadir cringed and held a hand to his head. “I warned her not to visit.” 

“Well, she did,” Erik sneered. “Let’s just say, no one took it well.” 

His friend sighed. “What exactly are you going to do?” 

That was a toughie. “I’m not sure,” he eventually admitted. “But I’m going to find Laila and make things right, hopefully by explaining myself.” 

“That’s not very reassuring,” Nadir remarked, knowing a lost cause when he saw one. “So you’re chasing after a girl... and I take it there’s no chance of talking you out of this.” He tapped the side of his face. 

“Not a chance in hell,” Erik agreed. He briefly adjusted his hat in the wall mirror and headed for the front door. 

The Iranian trailed after him with a mile-long stare. “I hope you are taking this recovery business seriously.” 

“I am, or I wouldn’t be going after her,” Erik scoffed, more than slightly insulted. 

“What else do you need?” 

Erik stopped to think about it. “A trail map of Norvin Green State Forest would be useful. I’m looking for someplace called the stone living room.” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“Stone. Living. Room.” He read the confusion on Nadir’s face and waved him off with a dismissive hand. “I’ll just Google it.” 

“Will you text me tomorrow?” 

“Yes, Mom.” Erik opened the front door and stepped swiftly across the threshold. 

“Erik!” Nadir called warily, and the masked man paused. “Be careful.” 

Erik rounded the steps to the driveway with the lithe grace of a dancer, his long coat fanning and flowing behind him. He turned and gave a theatrical little bow. “Daroga,” he crooned with unmistakable affection, “when am I _not_ careful?” He tipped his hat and hit the remote start on his fob; the black Porsche growled to life as he climbed inside. 

It was a luxury to be back in his car, a 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged 640-horsepower feat of German engineering. He plugged his cell phone into the car charger and turned up the stereo volume as Surgeon’s “The Primary Clear Light” blasted from the speakers. The pummeling 4/4 bassline thrummed and pounded like a heartbeat, and Erik sighed with blessed relief. He hadn’t gone this long without electronic music since his two-week exodus in a shipping container; loud techno was the sonic equivalent of coming home. He glanced into his own eyes in the rear-view mirror and steeled his spine. “Erik, you can do this,” he muttered. He opened the glove compartment and popped a 1mg Klonopin in his mouth to stave off benzo withdrawal. 

As he pulled out of the driveway and shifted gears, he glanced arbitrarily at the neighboring house. The porch light was on, and there was a lone figure seated on the rocking chair outside. That’s the guy who saved my life, Erik recognized with a flash of gratitude and embarrassment. He let the car roll by slowly and waved, figuring it was the least he could do. The old man stood like a sentinel at his post and waved back. _The universe is finally on my side_ , Erik thought, and revved the engine. 

From the porch, the old man watched the car speed down the block into the sunset. He kept his right hand up in the air long after it vanished, like he was saluting a ghost. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The route to Norvin Green State Forest was forty-five minutes long. Erik stopped for gas and bottled water in Springfield and took 24-W all the way to the end. From there it was another fifteen miles on 287-N to exit 53, where the journey veered west off the interstate. The suburbia soon dropped off into winding roads, rugged pines, and endless trees. By the time Erik crossed over the state forest line, the sky was almost dark. He had found directions to the stone living room on the _Weird NJ_ website while the attendant pumped his gas. Laila better be here, he mused as he turned into the parking lot, which appeared exactly as described on the side of Glenwild Avenue. Hiking up a mountain was not how he had envisioned his first day out of rehab. 

There was only one car in the lot, a white Mustang convertible with the top up, and Erik pulled in next to it. He grabbed his emergency backpack from the trunk, which was located in the front of the Porsche, stuffed the water bottle inside, and slung it over his shoulders. Then he walked over to the other car and read the license plate with Nadir’s flashlight. It was surrounded by a silver chain-linked frame and said: _ROXYSCAR_. Got you, Laila, he thought excitedly, and tracked the flashlight across the road to the steep, narrow trail scaling the rocky edifice beyond. The online directions said to take the blue Hewitt-Butler trail south for one mile up Torne Mountain. 

He locked his car with the fob and took a deep breath of pure mountain air, gazing up at the star-spangled sky. It had shaped up to be a particularly beautiful evening. “Even the stars look brighter tonight,” he whispered. Then he crossed the street and disappeared into the dark forest. 


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

Opening tracks:  
Clan of Xymox, “A Forest” (Cure cover), Massive Attack, “Teardrop”, Thievery Corporation, “Sweet Tides (Symphonik Version)”, Caribou, “Yeti”, Coldplay, “Clocks” 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Author’s note:  
This chapter gets a rating of MA for sexual content. Happy belated holidays. ;) 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It had been quite a while since Erik’s last excursion up a mountain. He wasn’t really the outdoors type per se; when he needed time away in nature, he spent the weekend at his secluded property in the rural part of Westchester county. It was the primary location for all his serious meditation and ritual work, and almost entirely technology-free, with the notable exception of a sound system custom-built for the space. Laila would love it there, he thought as he followed the steep trail off the main road. He pictured her reaction to the music room, with its circular stained glass window and airy loft filled with acoustic instruments, and made a plan to take her there as soon as humanly possible—after he showed her the studio, of course. 

Norvin Green State Forest at night was the kind of experience his wild heart could appreciate, rife with shady trees and primordial magic and the faint hint of campfire smoke on the breeze. Its 25-mile system of rambling trails was built from old logging roads of the previous centuries, dotted with rock formations, pitch pine, chestnut, cedar, and sassafras. The first stretch of the hike was a solid uphill workout, but it felt good, it felt purposeful to move, and the path soon leveled off. Cutting his way through the dark with the flashlight, Erik found himself at a crossroads, the intersection of the red and blue trails. Instantly, his mind conjured the legend of Robert Johnson, the infamous blues musician who sold his soul at the crossroads, and he flashed back to that fateful night in the desert long ago, when he decided to turn his life around. 

I may be decrepit and debased, but my soul is my own, he reflected. It is the only thing of value that I possess, and I’d give it to her in a heartbeat if she asked. It was easy to blame their attraction on infatuation and hormones, on detoxing for days in close proximity, but these explanations crumbled in contrast to the direct experience of _being_ in her presence. She was as stirring and evocative as any drug he’d ever taken, and he was hooked. From day one her dark eyes had cut through his defenses, and with one smile she had gutted him. Erik trusted his intuition implicitly; it was the only reason he’d managed to stay alive all these years, and part of him had known from the moment the nurse pulled back the screen that Laila would be someone special to him. 

And here he was, six days later: standing at a literal and figurative crossroads, chasing after the junkie girl he adored with ineloquent proclamations of love on his lips. It was too perfectly absurd to be anything other than fate. As he passed through the center of the cross and blazed west, he knew he was taking the right steps, walking the path prescribed to him with a real sense of destiny. Perhaps everything had happened exactly the way it was supposed to. The Universe willed it: he was meant to be there. 

The landscape began to change, trees and foliage giving way to large boulders and steep rocky expanses as the incline of the trail increased. Erik felt a rush of inspiration on the ascent. Before he knew it, he was singing. 

_“Come closer and see  
See into the trees  
Find the girl  
While you can _

_Come closer and see  
See into the dark  
Just follow your eyes  
Just follow your eyes _

_I hear her voice  
Calling my name  
The sound is deep  
In the dark _

_I hear her voice  
And start to run  
Into the trees  
Into the trees...”_

He was almost at the summit and he reached the first scenic outlook, an open rock ledge with a view of more mountains to the north. The trail circled around to a large open area with pristine views of the highlands to the west and a smattering of short stone cairns, which served as an informal landmark. From here he was supposed to take an unmarked side trail to the left, which would lead to the stone living room. Erik paused to briefly catch his breath and take a drink of water, holding in a lungful of clean air as he admired what he could discern of the scenery. Once again, he caught a trace of campfire smoke on the wind. I’m so close, he thought, and pressed onward. 

A little way past the cairns, he noticed the side trail. It was something that could have easily been missed, especially in the dark, and as he ventured off-course and cut through the underbrush his heart hammered and rose into his throat. The narrow path opened onto a second rocky clearing, and then he saw it, just like in her drawing—the jagged stone chairs set in a circle around the fire pit, floating like a mirage in the velvety black before a panoramic backdrop of endless rolling hills and stars. There was a small fire burning, and a dark figure huddled on one of the arm chairs. A few tall cairns stood nearby, stony guardians on the precipice. Erik passed them as he made his way across the clearing with the solemn, silent reverence of a pilgrim at mecca. 

As he approached, the figure in the arm chair stirred. It was Laila, wrapped in a red ultra-lightweight sleeping bag and looking more disheveled and downtrodden than he had ever seen her. Her pale face was grim and streaked with tears, shining in the firelight. He cleared his throat and took a seat opposite her in the stone circle, and she startled so hard she nearly tumbled off her perch, knocking over the forty by her feet. 

“Hello Laila,” he said quietly. He could tell she was drunk. 

“Erik!” she cried, the shock and disbelief playing across her face as she righted the toppled forty. “What are you doing here?” 

He flashed her a little smile and a shrug. “It looks like I’m chasing after you.” 

She gawked at him openly over the flames. “You’re not a figure of my imagination, right?” Her words were slightly slurred. 

“I’m as real as you are.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out the bottled water. “Here,” he said, and walked over to her. “You should drink this.” 

Laila stared at the water bottle in his outstretched hand like it would disappear at any second. Eventually, she grabbed it and took a long thirsty drink, and he positioned himself on the seat next to hers, a respectful distance away. When she tried to give him the bottle, he gestured, “Drink some more,” and reached over to throw a few branches from the wood pile onto the fire. 

She took several gulps, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and handed the bottle back to him. “Goddamn,” she laughed, and hiccuped loudly. “I’m a fucking mess.” Her expression shifted from one of amusement to despair. 

“You’re not a mess,” he replied softly, admiring the wild corona of her hair and the way it framed her face, the dark circles under her eyes and the reddened center of her lips, chapped and bee-stung where she had repeatedly bit them. She was a blurry vision of haunted perfection. “If you are, you’re the most beautiful mess I’ve ever seen.” It was the absolute truth. 

She sniffled and shook her head, trying to string her thoughts together. “I thought maybe... you were with _her_.” Her voice cracked. 

“She’s married, Laila,” he told her, attempting to convey complete sincerity through his tone. “There is nothing going on between us.” His eyes burned into hers. 

Laila didn’t seem too convinced. “Why did she come to see you?” 

He sighed heavily. “She wanted to return something to me, and keep a promise she made a long time ago. Nadir let it slip I was in rehab, and she visited of her own volition. I had no clue it was going to happen. She gave me this...” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silky wedding invitation, followed by the jewelry box. “And this.” He glanced down sheepishly. “I guess you’ve already seen it.” 

Laila swallowed hard, staring at the box. “If everything’s okay, then why did you freak out?” 

Erik put the items back in his pocket. “She told me some things about myself I didn’t want to hear. Things I, uh, definitely needed to hear.” He chuckled nervously and straightened his shoulders. “But I want to be better than that.” He looked down at his bandaged palm and let his gaze travel to her face. “I’m really sorry, Laila. I hope you believe me.” 

They were starting to lean towards each another, sucked into mutual orbit. Laila sniffed and wiped at her glistening eyes. “I believe you,” she murmured, and took a deep breath. “Why are you here, Erik?” 

The fire of his convictions blazed in his chest. He got up and took off his fedora in one swift movement, then bent down on one knee before her and gently grabbed her hands. They were much cooler than his. “I am here, Laila Ward, because I refuse to let you slip through my fingers.” He ran them over hers and felt her shiver. “You said everyone always leaves in the end. Well, I’m not going anywhere.” 

Her jaw dropped open as she struggled to process his statement, and then it hit her. She fell forward and hugged him with a savage, desperate grace. He took a shaky breath, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his masked face in the dark soft cloud of her hair. Their contours were perfectly aligned; the sweet sensation of her body was almost too much to bear. “Don’t go,” she purred into his neck. 

“I won’t,” he promised hoarsely. 

A few more seconds of bliss, and she pulled away to look at him. “Did you sign out AMA too?” 

He broke into a wry grin. “Uh, not exactly.” He sat back on his heels and grasped her icy hands in his. “I took a shortcut.” 

“Shortcut?” 

“Stacy helped me set off the fire alarm, and I made my own exit.” 

A look of astonished epiphany dawned on her face. “So you broke out of rehab... and hiked up the side of a mountain in the dark... to find me.” She giggled and coughed. 

“Pretty much,” he confirmed, lightly massaging her hands. “Laila, I care enough to chase after you.” 

A lone teardrop quivered and cascaded down her porcelain cheek, leaving behind a fresh silver track that he reached out and traced with a delicate finger. “I heard your song, you know,” he continued, inching closer. “I heard the whole thing.” 

She blinked rapidly and flushed, struggling for words that wouldn’t come out. “Erik...” 

He held a finger to her pursed lips. “Wait,” he insisted, and took a great breath to steel himself. “I’m going to take off the mask.” 

Her eyes grew round as saucers. “Are you sure?” 

“I need you to know exactly what you’re getting into before this goes any further.” He clasped their hands together with a determined squeeze. “Look, this has been one of the craziest weeks of my entire life... and believe me, that’s saying a lot. I went from nearly dying on Nadir’s kitchen floor, to meeting _you_. You—” He got choked up, and paused to collect himself. “You’ve given me hope in something I thought was closed off to me forever.” 

“What’s that?” 

He smiled demurely. “I think you know, Laila.” 

“Tell me,” she countered breathlessly. 

“I need you to see my face first.” 

She nodded and bit her lower lip. 

It was the final moment of reckoning, and all around them the forest stilled, as though nature itself had stopped to serve as witness. Erik’s hands trembled as he slowly reached up to remove the last symbolic barrier left between them. “Please don’t scream,” he muttered, that same old broken prayer, and he closed his eyes as smoke from the campfire hit his bare face. It was impossible not to cringe when he heard the breath catch involuntarily in her throat. 

All was silent, except for the crackling fire, and he waited. “Erik,” she whispered after what felt like an eternity. “Open your eyes.” And he did. 

Laila was transfixed, wide-eyed and tear-streaked, but she hadn’t run away. In fact, she might have gotten a little closer. The firelight danced in her pupils as she stretched out an uncertain hand and it hovered in the air between them. “C-can I touch you?” 

He nodded mutely, unable to speak, refuse, or look away, and his mind lurched. _My God, she wants to touch me._ Her hand made contact, and he sucked in his breath as she caressed the side of his deathly face, tracing her fingertips carefully over his jutting angular cheekbones, the deep ridges of his eye sockets, and the whorls of unnaturally smooth skin. Then she grew a little bolder, gliding over the ruined expanse where his nose should have been. When she ran her fingers through his tousled hair, he shuddered outright and leaned into her palm, his eyes fluttering half-closed. 

“Oh Erik, you’re the most beautiful mess I’ve ever seen,” she confessed as she took back her hand, and he opened one eye to peer at her. She was beaming at him, and by some miracle of grace, she was smiling. 

He let out a harsh bark of laughter. “What?” 

“I don’t care about your face,” she told him. “I think it makes me love you more.” 

Now he was gaping at her. “What did you say?” 

“You heard me,” she mumbled, blushing furiously. “Don’t make me say it again.” 

She didn’t look away, and there it was—the naked truth of that declaration, amplified and reflected in the black tide pools of her eyes, brimming with watery adulation. She didn’t care about the wasteland of his face. She _loved_ him. In a heartbeat, Erik rushed forward to close the distance between them. He pressed his forehead flush against hers and buried his hands in the soft shaved nape of her neck, an act that elicited a low unconscious moan in response. He was on the brink of breaching her tantalizing lips when a powerful column of energy surged through him. She electrified his very soul. He gazed deep into her eyes and uttered, “Laila, I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you.” And finally, he kissed her. 

Her lips parted instantly and they came together in a triumphant burst of gravity and heat, the light in perpetual extension streaming through them, so intense it could have been the birth of a whole new universe. He tasted the bitter salt of her tears in her wet hot mouth and failed to suppress a groan as she ran her hands over his chest, grabbing the lapels of his trench coat to pull him closer. 

Eventually, they broke apart for air. “Hmmm...” Laila giggled deliriously, resting her forehead against his. “I can't believe you’re here.” 

A mischievous smile played across his face. “Believe it, Laila,” he snipped, and reclaimed her mouth in another passionate kiss. 

Their tongues clashed. They were lost in each other, overcome with the need to taste and explore after so many days of restraint, clinging together like magnets that might never be separated. When Erik’s knees started buckling he climbed onto the chair without breaking contact whatsoever. His hands made their way beneath her shirt and eagerly mapped the valley of her lower back, all the way down to the glorious curvature of her ass. She responded by threading a hand through his hair and running her nails across his shoulders, then pulled away with a kittenish smirk and submerged the entirety of his earlobe in her excruciatingly succulent mouth. 

He moaned, loudly and helplessly. That was it—he grabbed her thighs, yanked her onto his lap, and slid his worshipful hands up and down the hour-glass shape of her legs, hips, and torso. She surrendered his ear and laughed delightedly, her whisper muffled against his neck. “You know, I dreamt this.” 

Erik pulled back to look at her. “Us?” 

“Being here, with you.” She meandered a finger down his chest with satisfaction. “Like this.” 

“Right now I could believe I’m dreaming,” he quipped, and cradled her face in his hands. “Did I do this in your dream?” And he plundered her mouth shamelessly, slipping under her shirt to stroke her small pert breasts with his calloused fingertips, teasing and grazing the curved underside before flicking a hard nipple. The mewling sound that erupted from her throat caused the blood to rush red-hot through his body in a feverish cascade. He was rock-hard, and as she rubbed against him he lost all semblance of decorum and clamped his mouth over her nipple through the t-shirt. 

“Ohhhh fuck, Erik,” she panted. He released her nipple and leered up at her. “Say that again,” he growled. 

Laila leaned forward until she hung over him. The wavy tendrils of her hair dangled into his vision. “Oh, fuck, Erik,” she annunciated crisply, her dark eyes glittering with pleasure. In one fluid motion, she stripped her t-shirt off over the top of her head. 

It took him a split-second to recover from the sight of her nude from the waist up. She was nothing less than an absolute goddess in the flesh, Galatea come to life. His hands immediately went to work traversing the silky smooth planes of her body, sculpting every supple curve with his rough palms and pianist’s fingers. With a roguish glint, he licked and traced his tongue along the line up the center of her taut, toned abdomen, all the way to her breasts. Laila buckled and moaned, then gasped aloud as he took her nipples in his mouth one by one and lavished them with his tongue. In a fit, she grinded up against him and threw her head back in ecstasy. 

When she reached down unexpectedly to stroke the hard outline of his erection, he nearly came in his pants. “Laila,” he grunted as she started to pull at his extraneous layers of clothing. “Are you sure you want this?” In another time, in another universe, he might have waited, but they were making their own rules and he had to have her. 

She pulled back and nodded emphatically. “I told you...” She pressed her lips to his, and began to slowly cover his skeletal face with ravenous kisses. “I want...” She licked the hollow of his cheek. “To cross...” She made her way across his face, not sparing a single inch. “Every line.” And she flashed the most bewitching, coquettish smile he’d ever seen straight into his soul. 

Erik was rendered speechless. A fraction of a second later, they collided in a breathless frenzy. She tugged at the sleeves of his trench coat and he tore it off agitatedly with her assistance, followed by his hoodie and t-shirt. Laila paused to admire him shirtless, gleefully running her curious hands over his lean marble-white chest. She paid particular attention to his tattoos and the numerous battle scars scattered across his arms and torso. “I bet these have a lot of interesting stories,” she murmured, licking a scar from an old stab wound before closing in on his nipple. 

He almost lost it again, struggling for composure as he clasped her shoulders, and she ceased her exquisite torture. “I will tell you the story behind each one,” he swore, heaving and gazing at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “But not—right—now.” 

She snaked off his lap to disrobe and he moved to help her, only to uncover the many laces on her boots. Of course, they had no zippers. “Fucking Doc Martens,” he cursed, shaking his head as he frantically undid the laces on one boot while Laila dealt with the other. Eventually, both boots were off. She rolled her skinny black jeans down her legs and playfully kicked them away, followed by her boy-cut panties, revealing the whole of her lush, fabulous ass and the sword tattoo running the length of her upper right thigh. 

Erik was instantly aflame. Although it hardly seemed possible, he was even more aroused. “Oh God, I _knew_ it was a sword,” he groaned, bucking towards her and reaching out to cup her breasts as she prepared to mount his lap. He had thought about it at length the day he noticed the tip peeking out of her shorts, not to mention the titillating morning he glimpsed her in a towel. 

She was on a one-track mission now, grappling with his fly. “Laila,” he sputtered, eyes rolling into the back of his head as she palmed his straining manhood and pulled down the zipper. “It’s been a really long time since I was with anyone.” 

“Mmmm, same,” she replied. 

“But I just got tested, and I’m clean.” 

She glanced at him. “So am I,” she whispered. “And I have an IUD.” 

He shuddered violently as she ran her fingers over his groin, coyly reached into his pants, and squeezed his raging hard-on through his underwear. “I might not last very long,” he gasped ruefully. 

Laila’s pupils flared. “Well, I’m not going anywhere, so you can take your time later. The only thing that matters...” She kissed him full on the lips for several seconds, then slyly released the cock from his pants. “...is right now.” He let out a sonorous moan as her hand closed around his aching shaft and gave a few firm, agonizing pumps. 

It took every ounce of self control Erik possessed not to spew when she climbed on top of him and positioned his head at the velvety threshold of her warm, slick entrance. The world of the mountaintop flickered and spun around them like a magic lantern; she looked deep into his eyes with a dreamy smile and tenderly stroked his face, then barreled down with a grunt as he plunged into her. 

They both cried out in harmony, and he gripped her perfect ass and kissed her roughly as she slowly began to ride him. It was, without a doubt, the most memorable fuck of his entire life, but _fuck_ was hardly the right word—it was the holy act of _hieros gamos_ , man and woman stripped of their personal identities and reduced to the purest essence of their respective forms: Man and Woman, Priest and Priestess, Shiva and Shakti, reveling in the infinite dance of matter and energy, the spirit and the flesh, a ritual older than time and humanity, and perhaps the Universe itself. 

She made short work of him. “Laila, Laila, I’m going to come,” he groaned through gritted teeth, desperately trying to hold back as their pace accelerated. 

She grinned devilishly and lifted herself off him at the very last instant until only the tip of his dick was inside her. “Do it Erik,” she hissed, and he reeled with mindless ecstasy, still attempting to resist the urges of his body. She got right in his face, clasped his cavernous cheeks in her palms, and kissed him passionately, then without warning slammed down hard onto his weeping, pearling cock. Behind them, the night sky swirled and exploded like a living, breathing Van Gogh painting, pulsing with love and benevolence and the simple joy of being alive and together, united in the moment. 

He climaxed so hard he went momentarily blind, lost in a flood of white light, heat, and salvation. “Ohhhh Laila,” he burbled deliriously, coming back to himself but unable to articulate any further, and with a victorious smirk she caught his lips once again. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Together. They were together at last, and for the rest of her life, Laila would never think of the stone living room the same way again. She climbed off Erik and groped around clumsily in dark, searching for her pants while he threw on his shirt and went to work re-stoking the campfire. It had almost gone out while they were _occupied_. To their good fortune, someone had left behind a small wood pile, likely from Labor Day weekend. By the time Laila put on everything but her boots, the fire was going strong. 

Erik lounged on the stone arm chair, still trying to catch his breath. He took a big swig of bottled water and beheld her lithe silhouette with awestruck eyes. “Come here Laila,” he called languorously, his rich voice dripping with honey. The chair was more than wide enough to accommodate two. He pulled her into his arms and swept the red sleeping bag blanket smoothly around them both. 

“Mmmm,” she purred agreeably, snuggling up to his chest and resting against him. It was hard to believe that only an hour earlier, she had been alone and heartbroken, crying into her beer. She sighed contentedly. “This is _so much better_ than before.” 

He laughed and nestled his face in the fuzzy junction between her neck and her shoulder. “I agree,” he chimed, nuzzling her softly. “And the night’s not over yet.” 

Laila glanced up at the starry canopy above them and the highlands in the distance. “Do you like it here?” she asked after a beat. 

“It’s very beautiful,” Erik told her, but he wasn’t looking at the sky. He zeroed in on her face until he captured her lips with his, and pulled back with a daze in his green-gold eyes. “You’re very beautiful,” he added huskily. 

She returned the kiss with enthusiasm and they lost themselves for a good minute. “I don’t want this night to ever end,” she confessed. 

“It doesn’t have to,” he said, stroking her cheek. “Come home with me.” 

“Really?” Her heart soared. 

He ran an appreciative hand down her side and rolled his eyes affectionately. “Yes, really. I’ll show you the studio, and we can jam and hang out or whatever, and I’ll drive you home. I promise.” 

“You’ll drive me back to New Jersey?” 

He scoffed. “I’ll drive you anywhere if it means I get another day with you.” 

“Okay,” she beamed. “I just need to stop home first. I, uh, sort of borrowed Roxy’s car.” 

“So I noticed.” He tapped her nose playfully. “But your father didn’t seem to.” 

“Wait, you met my dad?” 

He shrugged and waved noncommittally. “I may have stopped by your house briefly after I left the hospital.” A look of utter panic infused her face. “Don’t worry,” he snickered, “he thinks you’re still in rehab.” 

She exhaled guiltily. “I’m a horrible person.” 

“Shhhh.” Erik repositioned himself so that he was hovering over her and trailed languid kisses along her neck and shoulders. “Sweetheart, you are the best kind of person,” he murmured as she surrendered to his ministrations. “Seeing you like this inspires me. It makes me think of a poem...” 

“What poem?” 

“It’s a piece by William Carlos Williams,” he said, a fire brewing in his eyes. He kissed her hard on the mouth and ran his heavenly hands gratuitously all over her body. “ _You lethargic, waiting upon me, waiting for the fire_ ,” he intoned, slowly pulling up her t-shirt to expose her breasts. “ _And I, attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty..._ ” He cupped one breast and kissed it, and she shivered. “ _Shaken by your beauty_...” He squeezed the other breast and gave it the same treatment. “ _Shaken_.” 

Laila was suddenly in heat again, and she rolled her hips in frustration. “Settle down, sweet Laila,” he crooned as he licked her midriff and worked his way to the fly on her jeans. “Allow me to demonstrate to you one of the singular benefits of having no nose.” And with a wicked, impish grin, he pulled down the zipper with his teeth. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Author’s note:  
Over the past month, the first five chapters of this story have undergone a substantial edit, mainly for grammar and flow. No major events have been changed, but certain elements have been fleshed out, such as Erik and Laila’s first real conversation at the end of Chapter Two. 

The stone living room is a real place, as is every location in this story, and the directions are 100% accurate. 

The song Erik sings at the beginning of the chapter is “A Forest” by the Cure (an excellent cover by Clan of Xymox is on the soundtrack), and the William Carlos Williams quote is from his epic poem, _Paterson_. 

Thank you for sticking with me through this tale, which is as much a work of the soul as a piece of fanfiction. We are two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through, so there are still more surprises to come!


End file.
